i£x  ICthrta 


SEYMOUR  DURST 


When  you  leave,  please  leave  this  hook 

Because  it  has  heen  said 
"Ever'thing  comes  t'  him  who  waits 

Except  a  loaned  book." 


Avery  Architectural  and  Fine  Arts  Library 
Gift  of  Seymour  B.  Durst  Old  York  Library 

1 

Digitized  by 

the  Internet  Arcliive 

in  2013 

http://archive.org/details/spiritofghettostOOhapg_0 


II  SLi 


PER  I       nEW  YOP 


YJHAIJUDa^  A  8TV132aHq  asiTAaHT  aHT 


THE  THEATRE  PRESENTS  A  PECULIARLY 
PICTURESQUE  SIGHT 

{See  page  116) 


THE  SPIRIT  of 
THE  GHETTO 


STUDIES  OF  THE  JEWISH 
(^ARTER  IN  NEW  YORK 

By 

HUTCHINS  HAPGOOD 

With  Drawings  from  Life  by 
JACOB  EPSTEIN 


NEW  YORK  AND  LONDON 
FUNK  k  WAGNALLS  COMPANY 

NINETEEN   HUNDRED   AND  TWO 


Of  I. 


lis.  ^ 


Copyright,  1902 
by 

Funk  &  Wagnalls 
Company 

Printed  in  the 
United  States  of  America 


Published 
November,  1902 


NOTE 

A  number  of  these  chapters  have  appeared  as 
separate  articles  in  "  The  Atlantic  Monthly," 
"  The  Critic,"  "  The  Bookman,"  "  The  World's 
Work,"  "The  Boston  Transcript,"  and  "The 
Evening  Post"  and  "The  Commercial  Ad- 
vertiser "  of  New  York.  To  the  editors  of 
these  publications  thanks  for  permission  to 
republish  are  gratefully  tendered  by 

The  author. 


PREFACE 


HE  Jewish  quarter  of  New  York  is  generally 


*  supposed  to  be  a  place  of  poverty,  dirt,  igno- 
rance and  immorality — the  seat  of  the  sweat- 
shop, the  tenement  house,  where  red-lights " 
sparkle  at  night,  where  the  people  are  queer 
and  repulsive.  Well-to-do  persons  visit  the 
Ghetto  "  merely  from  motives  of  curiosity  or 
philanthropy;  writers  treat  of  it  "sociologically," 
as  of  a  place  in  crying  need  of  improvement. 

That  the  Ghetto  has  an  unpleasant  aspect  is 
as  true  as  it  is  trite.  But  the  unpleasant  aspect 
is  not  the  subject  of  the  following  sketches.  I 
was  led  to  spend  much  time  in  certain  poor  re- 
sorts of  Yiddish  New  York  not  through  motives 
either  philanthropic  or  sociological,  but  simply 
by  virtue  of  the  charm  I  felt  in  men  and  things 
there.  East  Canal  Street  and  the  Bowery  have 
interested  me  more  than  Broadway  and  Fifth 
Avenue.  Why,  the  reader  may  learn  from  the 
present  volume — which  is  an  attempt  made  by  a 
Gentile"  to  report  sympathetically  on  the 
character,  lives  and  pursuits  of  certain  east-side 
Jews  with  whom  he  has  been  in  relations  of 
considerable  intimacy. 


The  Author. 


5 


CONTENTS 

Chapter  I  P^ge 


The  Old  and  the  New 

The  Old  Man 
The  Boy 

The  "  Intellectuals  " 


9 


Chapter  II 

Prophets  without  Honor  421 

Submerged    Scholars :    A  Man  of  God — A  Bitter 
Prophet — A  Calm  Student 

The  Poor  Rabbis  :  Their  Grievances — The  "  Genu- 
ine "  Article — A  Down-Town  Specimen — The  Neg- 
lected Type 

Chapter  III 

The  Old  and  New  Woman  71 

The  Orthodox  Jewess  :  Devotion  and  Customs 
The  Modern  Type :    Passionate  Socialists — Con- 
firmed Blue-Stockings 
Place  of  Woman  in  Ghetto  Literature 


Chapter  IV 

Four  Poets  »  ao 

A  Wedding  Bard 

A  Champion  of  Race 

A  Singer  of  Labor 

A  Dreamer  of  Brotherhood 

Chapter  V 

The  Stage   .  113 

Theatres,  Actors,  and  Audience 
Realism,  the  Spirit  of  the  Ghetto  Theatre 
The  History  of  the  Yiddish  Stage 

7 


CONTENTS 


Chapter  VI  Pa?e 
The  Newspapers  177 

The  Conservative  Journals 
The  Socialist  Papers 
The  Anarchist  Papers 
Some  Picturesque  Contributors 

Chapter  VII 

The  Sketch-Writers  199 

Some  Realists 

A  Cultivated  Literary  Man 

American  Life  Through  Russian  Eyes 

A  Satirist  of  Tenement  Society 

Chapter  VIII 
A  Novelist  230 

Chapter  IX 

The  Young  Art  and  its  Exponents     .    .    .  254 

Chapter  X 

Odd  Characters  272 

An  Out-of-date  Story-Writer 

A  Cynical  Inventor 

An  Impassioned  Critic 

The  Poet  of  Zionism 

An  Intellectual  Debauchee 


8 


Chapter  One 


%\)t  (Z^lli  anil  t|)e  J^etu 

THE  OLD  MAN 


O  part  of  New  York 
has  a  more  intense 
and  varied  life  than 
the  colony  of  Russian 
and  Galician  Jews 
who  live  on  the  east 
side  and  who  form  the 
largest  Jewish  city  in 
the  world.  The  old 
and  the  new  come 
here  into  close  contact  and  throw 
each  other  into  high  relief.  The  tra- 
ditions and  customs  of  the  orthodox 
Jew  are  maintained  almost  in  their 
purity,  and  opposed  to  these  are 
forms  and  ideas  of  modern  life  of 
the  most  extreme  kind.  The  Jews 
are  at  once  tenacious  of  their  character  and 
susceptible  to  their  Gentile  environment,  when 

9 


that  environment  is  of  a  high  order  of  civil- 
ization. Accordingly,  in  enlightened  America 
they  undergo  rapid  transformation  tho  retaining 
much  that  is  distinctive ;  while  in  Russia,  sur- 
rounded by  an  ignorant  peasantry,  they  remain 
by  themselves,  do  not  so  commonly  learn  the 
Gentile  language,  and  prefer  their  own  forms  of 
culture.  There  their  life  centres  about  religion. 
Prayer  and  the  study  of  *'the  Law"  constitute 
practically  the  whole  life  of  the  religious  Jew. 

When  the  Jew  comes  to  America  he  remains, 
if  he  is  old,  essentially  the  same  as  he  was  in 
Russia.  His  deeply  rooted  habits  and  the 
worry  of  daily  bread"  make  him  but  little  sen- 
sitive to  the  conditions  of  his  new  home.  His 
imagination  lives  in  the  old  country  and  he  gets 
his  consolation  in  the  old  religion.  He  picks  up 
only  about  a  hundred  English  words  and  phrases, 
which  he  pronounces  in  his  own  way.  Some  of  ' 
his  most  common  acquisitions  are  "  vinda  "  (win- 
dow), *^zieling"  (ceiling),  "never  mind,"  *^alle 
right,"  "that'll  do,"  "  politzman  "  (policeman) ; 
''em  schon  kind,  ein  reg'lar  pitze !"  (a  pretty  child, 
a  regular  picture).  Of  this  modest  vocabulary 
he  is  very  proud,  for  it  takes  him  out  of  the  cate- 
gory of  the  "greenhorn,"  a  term  of  contempt  to 
which  the  satirical  Jew  is  very  sensitive.  The 
man  who  has  been  only  three  weeks  in  this 


country  hates  few  things  so  much  as  to  be  called 
a  ''greenhorn."  Under  this  fear  he  learns  the 
small  vocabulary  to  which  in  many  years  he  adds 
very  little.  His  dress  receives  rather  greater 
modification  than  his  language.  In  the  old 
country  he  never  appeared  in  a  short  coat ;  that 
would  be  enough  to  stamp  him  as  a  ''free- 
thinker." But  when  he  comes  to  New  York  and 
his  coat  is  worn  out  he  is  unable  to  find  any 
garment  long  enough.  The  best  he  can  do  is  to 
buy  a  "cut-away"  or  a  "Prince  Albert,"  which 
he  often  calls  a  "Prince  Isaac."  As  soon  as  he 
imbibes  the  fear  of  being  called  a  "greenhorn" 
he  assumes  the  "Prince  Isaac"  with  less  regret. 
Many  of  the  old  women,  without  diminution  of 
piety,  discard  their  wigs,  which  are  strictly  re- 
quired by  the  orthodox  in  Russia,  and  go  even 
to  the  synagogue  with  nothing  on  their  heads 
but  their  natural  locks. 

The  old  Jew  on  arriving  in  New  York  usually 
becomes  a  sweat-shop  tailor  or  push-cart  ped- 
dler. There  are  few  more  pathetic  sights  than 
an  old  man  with  a  long  beard,  a  little  black  cap 
on  his  head  and  a  venerable  face — a  man  who 
had  been  perhaps  a  Hebraic  or  Talmudic  scholar 
in  the  old  country,  carrying  or  pressing  piles  of 
coats  in  the  melancholy  sweat-shop ;  or  standing 
for  sixteen  hours  a  day  by  his  push-cart  in  one 


of  the  dozen  crowded  streets  of  the  Ghetto, 
where  the  great  markets  are,  selling  among 
many  other  things  apples,  garden  stuff,  fish  and 
second-hand  shirts. 

This  man  also  becomes  a  member  of  one  of 
the  many  hundred  lodges  which  exist  on  the  east 
side.  These  societies  curiously  express  at  once 
the  old  Jewish  customs  and  the  conditions  of 
the  new  world.  They  are  mutual  insurance 
companies  formed  to  support  sick  members. 
When  a  brother  is  ill  the  President  appoints  a 

committee  to  visit 
him.  Mutual  insur- 
ance societies  and 
committees  are 
American  enough, 
and  visiting  the  sick 
is  prescribed  by  the 
Talmud.  This  is  a 
striking  instance  of 
the  adaptation  of  the 
^'old"  to  the  *'new." 
The  committee  not 
only  condoles  with 
the  decrepit  member, 
but  gives  him  a  sum  of  money. 

Another  way  in  which  the  life 
of  the  old  Jew  is  affected  by  his 


New  York  environment,  perhaps  the  most  im- 
portant way  as  far  as  intellectual  and  educative 
influences  are  concerned,  is  through  the  Yid- 
dish newspapers,  which  exist  nowhere  except 
in  this  country.  They  keep  him  in  touch  with 
the  world's  happenings  in  a  way  quite  impos- 
sible in  Europe.  At  the  Yiddish  theatres,  too, 
he  sees  American  customs  portrayed,  although 
grotesquely,  and  the  old  orthodox  things  often 
satirized  to  a  degree;  the  greenhorn"  laughed 
to  scorn  and  the  rabbi  held  up  to  derision. 

Nevertheless  these  influences  leave  the  man 
pretty  much  as  he  was  when  he  landed  here.  He 
remains  the  patriarchal  Jew  devoted  to  the  law 
and  to  prayer.  He  never  does  anything  that  is  not 
prescribed,  and  worships  most  of  the  time  that 
he  is  not  at  work.  He  has  only  one  point  of  view, 
that  of  the  Talmud;  and  his  aesthetic  as  well  as 
his  religious  criteria  are  determined  by  it.  "  This 
is  a  beautiful  letter  you  have  written  me  "  ;  wrote 
an  old  man  to  his  son,  **it  smells  of  Isaiah."  He 
makes  of  his  house  a  synagogue,  and  prays  three 
times  a  day ;  when  he  prays  his  head  is  covered, 
he  wears  the  black  and  white  praying-shawl,  and 
the  cubes  of  the  phylactery  are  attached  to  his 
forehead  and  left  arm.  To  the  cubes  are  fastened 
two  straps  of  goat-skin,  black  and  white ;  those 
on  the  forehead  hang  down,  and  those  attached 

13 


to  the  other  cube  are  wound  seven  times  about 
the  left  arm.  Inside  each  cube  is  a  white  parch- 
ment on  which  is  written  the  Hebrew  word  for 
God,  which  must  never  be  spoken  by  a  Jew. 
The  strength  of  this  prohibition  is  so  great  that 
even  the  Jews  who  have  lost  their  faith  are  un- 
willing to  pronounce  the  word. 

Besides  the  home  prayers  there  are  daily  visits 
to  the  synagogue,  fasts  and  holidays  to  observe. 
When  there  is  a  death  in  the  family  he  does  not 
go  to  the  synagogue,  but  prays  at  home.  The 
ten  men  necessary  for  the  funeral  ceremony,  who 
are  partly  supplied  by  the  Bereavement  Commit- 
tee of  the  Lodge,  sit  seven  days  in  their  stocking- 
feet  on  foot-stools  and  read  Job  all  the  time.  On 
the  Day  of  Atonement  the  old  Jew  stands  much 
of  the  day  in  the  synagogue,  wrapped  in  a  white 
gown,  and  seems  to  be  one  of  a  meeting  of  the 
dead.  The  Day  of  Rejoicing  of  the  Law  and  the 
Day  of  Purim  are  the  only  two  days  in  the  year 
when  an  orthodox  Jew  may  be  intoxicated.  It 
is  virtuous  on  these  days  to  drink  too  much,  but 
the  sobriety  of  the  Jew  is  so  great  that  he  some- 
times cheats  his  friends  and  himself  by  shamming 
drunkenness.  On  the  first  and  second  evenings 
of  the  Passover  the  father  dresses  in  a  big  white 
robe,  the  family  gather  about  him,  and  the 
youngest  male  child  asks  the  father  the  reason 

14 


why  the  day  is  cele- 
brated; whereupon  the 
old  man  relates  the 
whole  history,  and  they 
all  talk  it  over  and  eat, 
and  drink  wine,  but  in 
no  vessel  which  has 
been  used  before  dur- 
ing the  year,  for  every- 
thing must  be  fresh  and 
clean  on  this  day.  The 
night  before  the  Pas- 
sover the  remaining 
leavened  bread  is  gath- 
ered together,  just  enough  for  breakfast,  for  only 
unleavened  bread  can  be  eaten  during  the  next 
eight  days.  The  head  of  the  family  goes  around 
with  a  candle,  gathers  up  the  crumbs  with  a  quill 
or  a  spoon  and  burns  them.  A  custom  which  has 

IS 


almost  died  out  in  New  York  is  for  the  congre- 
gation to  go  out  of  the  synagogue  on  the  night 
of  the  full  moon,  and  chant  a  prayer  in  the 
moonlight. 

In  addition  to  daily  religious  observances  in 
his  home  and  in  the  synagogues,  to  fasts  and 
holidays,  the  orthodox  Jew  must  give  much 
thought  to  his  diet.  One  great  law  is  the  line 
drawn  between  milk  things  and  meat  things. 
The  Bible  forbids  boiling  a  kid  in  the  milk  of  its 
mother.  Consequently  the  hair-splitting  Talmud 
prescribes  the  most  far-fetched  discrimination. 
For  instance,  a  plate  in  which  meat  is  cooked  is 
called  a  meat  vessel,  the  knife  with  which  it  is 
cut  is  called  a  meat  knife,  the  spoon  with  which 
one  eats  the  soup  that  was  cooked  in  a  meat  pot, 
though  there  is  no  meat  in  the  soup,  is  a  meat 
spoon,  and  to  use  that  spoon  for  a  milk  thing  is 
prohibited.  All  these  regulations,  of  course,  seem 
privileges  to  the  orthodox  Jew.  The  sweat- 
shops are  full  of  religious  fanatics,  who,  in  addi- 
tion to  their  ceremonies  at  home,  form  Talmudic 
clubs  and  gather  in  tenement -house  rooms, 
which  they  convert  into  synagogues. 

In  several  of  the  cafes  of  the  quarter  these  old 
fellows  gather.  With  their  long  beards,  long 
black  coats,  and  serious  demeanor,  they  sit  about 
little  tables  and  drink  honey-cider,  eat  lima 

i6 


beans  and  jealously  exclude  from  their  society 
the  socialists  and  freethinkers  of  the  colony  who, 
not  unwillingly,  have  cafes  of  their  own.  They 
all  look  poor,  and  many  of  them  are,  in  fact,  ped- 
dlers, shop-keepers  or  tailors;  but  some,  not 
distinguishable  in  appearance  from  the  proleta- 
rians, have  **made  their  pile."  Some  are  He- 
brew scholars,  some  of  the  older  class  of  Yid- 
dish journalists.  There 
are  no  young  people 
there,  for  the  young 
bring  irreverence  and 
the  American  spirit,  and 
these  cafes  are  strictly 
orthodox. 

In  spite,  therefore,  of 
his  American  environ- 
ment, the  old  Jew  of  the 
Ghetto  remains  patri- 
archal,   highly  trained 
and    educated    in  a 
narrow  sectarian  direc- 
tion, but  entirely  igno- 
rant of  modern  cul- 
ture ;   medieval,  in 
effect,  submerged 
in  old  tradition  and 
outworn  forms. 


THE  BOY 


The  shrewd-faced  boy  with  the  melancholy 
eyes  that  one  sees  everywhere  in  the  streets  of 
New  York's  Ghetto,  occupies  a  peculiar  position 
in  our  society.  If  we  could  penetrate  into  his 
soul,  we  should  see  a  mixture  of  almost  unprece- 
dented hope  and  excitement  on  the  one  hand, 
and  of  doubt,  confusion,  and  self-distrust  on  the 
other  hand.  Led  in  many  contrary  directions, 
the  fact  that  he  does  not  grow  to  be  an  intellec- 
tual anarchist  is  due  to  his  serious  racial  charac- 
teristics. 

Three  groups  of  influences  are  at  work  on  him 
— the  orthodox  Jewish,  the  American,  and  the 
Socialist ;  and  he  experiences  them  in  this  order. 
He  has  either  been  born  in  America  of  Russian, 
Austrian,  or  Roumanian  Jewish  parents,  or  has 
immigrated  with  them  when  a  very  young  child. 
The  first  of  the  three  forces  at  work  on  his 
character  is  religious  and  moral;  the  second  is 
practical,  diversified,  non-religious;  and  the  third 
is  reactionary  from  the  other  two  and  hostile  to 
them. 

Whether  born  in  this  country  or  in  Russia,  the 
son  of  orthodox  parents  passes  his  earliest  years 
in  a  family  atmosphere  where  the  whole  duty  of 
man  is  to  observe  the  religious  law.    He  learns 

i8 


THE 

MORNING 
PRAYER 


to  say  his  prayers  every  morn- 
ing and  evening,  either  at  home 
or  at  the  synagogue.  At  the 
age  of  five,  he  is  taken  to  the 
Hebrew  private  school,  the 
**chaider,"  where,  in  Russia, 
he  spends  most  of  his  time  from  early  morning 
till  late  at  night.  The  ceremony  accompanying 
his  first  appearance  in  ''chaider"  is  significant 
of  his  whole  orthodox  life.  Wrapped  in  a 
**talith,"  or  praying  shawl,  he  is  carried  by  his 
father  to  the  school  and  received  there  by  the 
**melamed/'  or  teacher,  who  holds  out  before 
him  the  Hebrew  alphabet  on  a  large  chart. 
Before  beginning  to  learn  the  first  letter  of  the 
alphabet,  he  is  given  a  taste  of  honey,  and  when 

19 


he  declares  it  to  be  sweet,  he  is  told  that  the 
study  of  the  Holy  Law,  upon  which  he  is  about 
to  enter,  is  sweeter  than  honey.  Shortly  after- 
wards a  coin  falls  from  the  ceiling,  and  the 
boy  is  told  that  an  angel  dropped  it  from  heaven 
as  a  reward  for  learning  the  first  lesson. 

In  the  Russian  '^chaider"  the  boy  proceeds 
with  a  further  study  of  the  alphabet,  then  of  the 
prayer-book,  the  Pentateuch,  other  portions  of 
the  Bible,  and  finally  begins  with  the  complicated 
Talmud.  Confirmed  at  thirteen  years  of  age,  he 
enters  the  Hebrew  academy  and  continues  the 
study  of  the  Talmud,  to  which,  if  he  is  successful, 
he  will  devote  himself  all  his  life.  For  his  parents 
desire  him  to  be  a  rabbi,  or  Talmudical  scholar, 
and  to  give  himself  entirely  to  a  learned  inter- 
pretation of  the  sweet  law. 

The  boy's  life  at  home,  in  Russia,  conforms 
with  the  religious  education  received  at  the 
''chaider."  On  Friday  afternoon,  when  the 
Sabbath  begins,  and  on  Saturday  morning,  when 
it  continues,  he  is  free  from  school,  and  on  Friday 
does  errands  for  his  mother  or  helps  in  the  prep- 
aration for  the  Sabbath.  In  the  afternoon  he 
commonly  bathes,  dresses  freshly  in  Sabbath 
raiment,  and  goes  to  ^^chaider"  in  the  evening. 
Returning  from  school,  he  finds  his  mother  and 
sisters  dressed  in  their  best,  ready  to    greet  the 


GOING  TO  THE  SYNAGOGUE 


Sabbath."  The  lights  are  glowing  in  the  candle- 
sticks, the  father  enters  with  ^^Good  Shabbas" 
on  his  lips,  and  is  received  by  the  grandparents, 
who  occupy  the  seats  of  honor.  They  bless  him 
and  the  children  in  turn.  The  father  then  chants 
the  hymn  of  praise  and  salutation ;  a  cup  of  wine 
or  cider  is  passed  from  one  to  the  other;  every 
one  washes  his  hands;  all  arrange  themselves 
at  table  in  the  order  of  age,  the  youngest  sitting 
at  the  father's  right  hand.  After  the  meal  they 
sing  a  song  dedicated  to  the  Sabbath,  and  say 
grace.  The  same  ceremony  is  repeated  on  Sat- 
urday morning,  and  afterwards  the  children  are 
examined  in  what  they  have  learned  of  the  Holy 
Law  during  the  week.  The  numerous  religious 
holidays  are  observed  in  the  same  way,  with 
special  ceremonies  of  their  own  in  addition.  The 
important  thing  to  notice  is,  that  the  boy's  whole 
training  and  education  bear  directly  on  ethics 
and  religion,  in  the  study  of  which  he  is  encour- 
aged to  spend  his  whole  life. 

In  a  simple  Jewish  community  in  Russia, 
where  the  "chaider"  is  the  only  school,  where 
the  government  is  hostile,  and  the  Jews  are 
therefore  thrown  back  upon  their  own  customs, 
the  boy  loves  his  religion,  he  loves  and  honors 
his  parents,  his  highest  ambition  is  to  be  a  great 
scholar — to  know  the  Bible  in  all  its  glorious 


meaning,  to  know  the  Talmudical  comments 
upon  it,  and  to  serve  God.  Above  every  one 
else  he  respects  the  aged,  the  Hebrew  scholar, 
the  rabbi,  the  teacher.  Piety  and  wisdom  count 
more  than  riches,  talent  and  power.  The  "  law  " 
outweighs  all  else  in  value.  Abraham  and  Moses, 
David  and  Solomon,  the  prophet  Elijah,  are  the 
kind  of  great  men  to  whom  his  imagination  soars. 

But  in  America,  even  before  he  begins  to  go  to 
our  public  schools,  the  little  Jewish  boy  finds 
himself  in  contact  with  a  new  world  which  stands 
in  violent  contrast  with  the  orthodox  environ- 
ment of  his  first  few  years.  Insensibly — at  the 
beginning — from  his  playmates  in  the  streets, 
from  his  older  brother  or  sister,  he  picks  up  a 
little  English,  a  little  American  slang,  hears 
older  boys  boast  of  prize-fighter  Bernstein,  and 
learns  vaguely  to  feel  that  there  is  a  strange  and 
fascinating  life  on  the  street.  At  this  tender  age 
he  may  even  begin  to  black  boots,  gamble  in 
pennies,  and  be  filled  with  a  ''wild  surmise" 
about  American  dollars. 

With  his  entrance  into  the  public  school  the 
little  fellow  runs  plump  against  a  system  of  edu- 
cation and  a  set  of  influences  which  are  at  total 
variance  with  those  traditional  to  his  race  and 
with  his  home  life.  The  religious  element  is  en- 
tirely lacking.    The  educational  system  of  the 

23 


public  schools  is  heterogeneous  and  worldly. 
The  boy  becomes  acquainted  in  the  school  reader 
with  fragments  of  writings  on  all  subjects,  with 
a  little  mathematics,  a  little  history.  His  in- 
struction, in  the  interests  of  a  liberal  non-secta- 
rianism, is  entirely  secular.  English  becomes 
his  most  familiar  language.  He  achieves  a  grow- 
ing comprehension  and  sympathy  with  the  inde- 
pendent, free,  rather  sceptical  spirit  of  the 
American  boy;  he  rapidly  imbibes  ideas  about 
social  equality  and  contempt  for  authority,  and 
tends  to  prefer  Sherlock  Holmes  to  Abraham  as 
a  hero. 

The  orthodox  Jewish  influences,  still  at  work 
upon  him,  are  rapidly  weakened.  He  grows  to 
look  upon  the  ceremonial  life  at  home  as  rather 
ridiculous.  His  old  parents,  who  speak  no  Eng- 
lish, he  regards  as  ^'greenhorns."  English  be- 
comes his  habitual  tongue,  even  at  home,  and 
Yiddish  he  begins  to  forget.  He  still  goes  to 
"chaider,"  but  under  conditions  exceedingly  dif- 
ferent from  those  obtaining  in  Russia,  where 
there  are  no  public  schools,  and  where  the  boy 
is  consequently  shut  up  within  the  confines  of 
Hebraic  education.  In  America,  the  **chaider" 
assumes  a  position  entirely  subordinate.  Com- 
pelled by  law  to  go  to  the  American  public 
school,  the  boy  can  attend  ''chaider  "  only  before 

24 


the  public  school  opens  in  the  morning  or  after 
it  closes  in  the  afternoon.  At  such  times  the 
Hebrew  teacher,  who  dresses  in  a  long  black 
coat,  outlandish  tall  hat,  and  commonly  speaks 
no  English,  visits  the  boy  at  home,  or  the  ooy 
goes  to  a  neighboring  **chaider." 

Contempt  for  the  **chaider's"  teaching  comes 
the  more  easily  because  the  boy  rarely  un- 
derstands his  Hebrew  lessons  to  the  full.  His 
real  language  is  English,  the  teacher's  is  com- 
monly the  Yiddish  jargon,  and  the  language  to 
be  learned  is  Hebrew.  The  problem  before  him 
is  consequently  the  strangely  difficult  one  of 
learning  Hebrew,  a  tongue  unknown  to  him, 
through  a  translation  into  Yiddish,  a  language 
of  growing  unfamiliarity,  which,  on  account  of 
its  poor  dialectic  character,  is  an  inadequate  ve- 
hicle of  thought. 

The  orthodox  parents  begin  to  see  that  the 
boy,  in  order  to  **get  along"  in  the  New  World, 
must  receive  a  Gentile  training.  Instead  of 
hoping  to  make  a  rabbi  of  him,  they  reluctantly 
consent  to  his  becoming  an  American  business 
man,  or,  still  better,  an  American  doctor  or  law- 
yer. The  Hebrew  teacher,  less  convinced  of 
the  usefulness  and  importance  of  his  work,  is 
in  this  country  more  simply  commercial  and 
less  disinterested  than  abroad;  a  man  gener- 

25 


ally,  too,  of  less  scholarship  as  well  as  of  less 
devotion. 

The  growing  sense  of  superiority  on  the  part 
of  the  boy  to  the  Hebraic  part  of  his  environment 
extends  itself  soon  to  the  home.  He  learns  to 
feel  that  his  parents,  too,  are  ^'greenhorns."  In 
the  struggle  between  the  two  sets  of  influences 
that  of  the  home  becomes  less  and  less  effective. 
He  runs  away  from  the  supper  table  to  join  his 
gang  on  the  Bowery,  where  he  is  quick  to  pick 
up  the  very  latest  slang;  where  his  talent  for 
caricature  is  developed  often  at  the  expense  of 
his  parents,  his  race,  and  all    foreigners " ;  for 


THE  "CHAIDER" 


he  is  an  American,  he  is  "the  people,"  and  like 
his  glorious  countrymen  in  general,  he  is  quick 
to  ridicule  the  stranger.  He  laughs  at  the  for- 
eign Jew  with  as  much  heartiness  as  at  the 
*'dago";  for  he  feels  that  he  himself  is  almost 
as  remote  from  the  one  as  from  the  other. 

"Why  don't  you  say  your  evening  prayer,  my 
son?"  asks  his  mother  in  Yiddish. 

"Ah,  what  yer  givin'  us!"  replies,  in  English, 
the  little  American-Israelite  as  he  makes  a  bee- 
line  for  the  street. 

The  boys  not  only  talk  together  of  picnics,  of 
the  crimes  of  which  they  read  in  the  English 
newspapers,  of  prize-fights,  of  budding  business 
propositions,  but  they  gradually  quit  going  to 
synagogue,  give  up  "chaider"  promptly  when 
they  are  thirteen  years  old,  avoid  the  Yiddish 
theatres,  seek  the  up-town  places  of  amusement, 
dress  in  the  latest  American  fashion,  and  have  a 
keen  eye  for  the  right  thing  in  neckties.  They 
even  refuse  sometimes  to  be  present  at  supper 
on  Friday  evenings.  Then,  indeed,  the  sway  of 
the  old  people  is  broken. 

"  Amerikane  Kinder,  Amerikane  Kinder!" 
wails  the  old  father,  shaking  his  head.  The 
trend  of  things  is  indeed  too  strong  for  the  old 
man  of  the  eternal  Talmud  and  ceremony. 

An  important  circumstance  in  helping  to  de- 

27 


termine  the  boy's  attitude  toward  his  father  is 
the  tendency  to  reverse  the  ordinary  and  normal 
educational  and  economical  relations  existing 
between  father  and  son.  In  Russia  the  father 
gives  the  son  an  education  and  supports  him 
until  his  marriage,  and  often  afterward,  until  the 
young  man  is  able  to  take  care  of  his  wife  and 
children.  The  father  is,  therefore,  the  head  of 
the  house  in  reality.  But  in  the  New  World  the 
boy  contributes  very  early  to  the  family's  support. 
The. father  is  in  this  country  less  able  to  make 
an  economic  place  for  himself  than  is  the  son. 
The  little  fellow  sells  papers,  blacks  boots,  and 
becomes  a  street  merchant  on  a  small  scale.  As 
he  speaks  English,  and  his  parents  do  not,  he  is 
commonly  the  interpreter  in  business  transac- 
tions, and  tends  generally  *-o  take  things  into  his 
own  hands.  There  is  a  tendency,  therefore,  for 
the  father  to  respect  the  son. 

There  is  many  a  huge  building  on  Broadway 
which  is  the  external  sign  (with  the  Hebrew 
name  of  the  tenant  emblazoned  on  some  extended 
surface)  of  the  energy  and  independence  of  some 
ignorant  little  Russian  Jew,  the  son  of  a  push- 
cart peddler  or  sweat-shop  worker,  wno  began 
his  business  career  on  the  sidewalks,  selling 
newspapers,  blacking  boots,  dealing  in  candles, 
shoe-strings,  fruit,  etc.,  and  continued  it  by  ped- 

28 


dling  in  New  Jersey  or  on  Long  Island  until  he 
could  open  a  small  basement  store  on  Hester 
Street,  then  a  more  extensive  establishment  on 
Canal  Street — ending  perhaps  as  a  rich  merchant 
on  Broadway.  The  little  fellow  who  starts  out 
on  this  laborious  climb  is  a  model  of  industry 
and  temperance.  His  only  recreation,  outside 
of  business,  which  for  him  is  a  pleasure  in  itself, 
is  to  indulge  in  some  simple  pastime  which  gen- 
erally is  calculated  to  teach  him  something.  On 
Friday  or  Saturday  afternoon  he  is  likely,  for 
instance,  to  take  a  long  walk  to  the  park,  where 
he  is  seen  keenly  inspecting  the  animals  and 
perhaps  boasting  of  his  knowledge  about  them. 
He  is  an  acquisitive  little  fellow,  and  seldom  en- 
joys himself  unless  he  feels  that  he  is  adding  to 
his  figurative  or  literal  stock. 

The  cloak  and  umbrella  business  in  New  York 
is  rapidly  becoming  monopolized  by  the  Jews 
who  began  in  the  Ghetto  ;  and  they  are  also 
very  large  clothing  merchants.  Higher,  how- 
ever, than  a  considerable  merchant  in  the  world 
of  business,  the  little  Ghetto  boy,  born  in  a  patri- 
archal Jewish  home,  has  not  yet  attained.  The 
Jews  who  as  bankers,  brokers,  and  speculators 
on  Wall  Street  control  millions  never  have  been 
Ghetto  Jews.  They  came  from  Germany, 
where  conditions  are  very  different  from  those 

29 


in  Russia,  Galicia,  and  Roumania,  and  where, 
through  the  comparatively  liberal  education  of 
a  secular  character  which  they  were  able  to 
obtain,  they  were  already  beginning  to  have  a 
national  life  outside  of  the  Jewish  traditions. 
Then,  too,  these  Jews  who  are  now  prominent 
in  Wall  Street  have  been  in  this  country  much 
longer  than  their  Russian  brethren.  They  are 
frequently  the  sons  of  Germans  who  in  the  last 
generation  attained  commercial  rank.  If  they 
were  born  abroad,  they  came  many  years  before 
the  Russian  immigration  began  and  before  the 
American  Ghetto  existed,  and  have  conse- 
quently become  thoroughly  identified  with 
American  life.  Some  of  them  began,  indeed,  as 
peddlers  on  a  very  small  scale ;  travelled,  as  was 
more  the  habit  with  them  then  than  now,  all 
over  the  country ;  and  rose  by  small  degrees  to 
the  position  of  great  financial  operators.  But 
they  became  so  only  by  growing  to  feel  very  in- 
timately the  spirit  of  American  enterprise  which 
enables  a  man  to  carry  on  the  boldest  operation 
in  a  calm  spirit. 

To  this  boldness  the  son  of  the  orthodox 
parents  of  our  Ghetto  has  not  yet  attained.  Com- 
ing from  the  cramped  quarter,"  with  still  a 
tinge  of  the  patriarchal  Jew  in  his  blood,  not  yet 
thoroughly  at  home  in  the  atmosphere  of  the 

30 


American  plunger,"  he  is  a  little  hesitant, 
though  very  keen,  in  business  affairs.  The  con- 
servatism instilled  in  him  by  the  pious  old 

greenhorn,"  his  father,  is  a  limitation  to  his 
American  ''nerve."  He  likes  to  deal  in  ponder- 
able goods,  to  be  able  to  touch  and  handle  his 
wares,  to  have  them  before  his  eyes.  In  the 
next  generation,  when  in  business  matters  also 
he  will  be  an  instinctive  American,  he  will  be- 
come as  big  a  finan- 
cial speculator  as  any 
of  them,  but  at  pres- 
ent he  is  pretty  well 
content  with  his 
growing  business  on 
Broadway  and  his  fine 
residence  up-town. 

Altho  as  compared 
with  the  American  or 
German-Jew  financier 
who  does  not  turn  a 
hair  at  the  gain  or  loss 
of  a  million,  and  who 
in  personal  manner 
maintains  a  phleg- 
matic, Napoleonic 
calm  which  is  almost 
the  most  impressive 


FRIDAY  NIGHT  PRAY 


thing  in  the  world  to  an  ordinary  man,  the 
young  fellow  of  the  Ghetto  seems  a  hesitant  lit- 
tle **dickerer,"  yet,  of  course,  he  is  a  rising  busi- 
ness man,  and,  as  compared  to  the  world  from 
which  he  has  emerged,  a  very  tremendous  entity 
indeed.  It  is  not  strange,  therefore,  that  this  pro- 
gressive merchant,  while  yet  a  child,  acquires  a 
self-sufficiency,  an  independence,  and  sometimes 
an  arrogance  which  not  unnaturally,  at  least  in 
form,  is  extended  even  toward  his  parents. 

If  this  boy  were  able  entirely  to  forget  his  ori- 
gin, to  cast  off  the  ethical  and  religious  influ- 
ences which  are  his  birthright,  there  would  be 
no  serious  struggle  in  his  soul,  and  he  would  not 
represent  a  peculiar  element  in  our  society.  He 
would  be  like  any  other  practical,  ambitious, 
rather  worldly  American  boy.  The  struggle  is 
strong  because  the  boy's  nature,  at  once  relig- 
ious and  susceptible,  is  strongly  appealed  to  by 
both  the  old  and  new.  At  the  same  time  that 
he  is  keenly  sensitive  to  the  charm  of  his  Amer- 
ican environment,  with  its  practical  and  national 
opportunities,  he  has  still  a  deep  love  for  his 
race  and  the  old  things.  He  is  aware,  and 
rather  ashamed,  of  the  limitations  of  his  parents. 
He  feels  that  the  trend  and  weight  of  things  are 
against  them,  that  they  are  in  a  minority ;  but 
yet  in  a  real  way  the  old  people  remain  his  con- 

32 


science,  the  visible  representatives  of  a  moral 
and  religious  tradition  by  which  the  boy  may 
regulate  his  inner  life. 

The  attitude  of  such  a  boy  toward  his  father 
and  mother  is  sympathetically  described  by  Dr. 
Blaustein,  principal  of  the  Educational  Alliance  : 

Not  knowing  that  I  speak  Yiddish,  the  boy 
often  acts  as  interpreter  between  me  and  his 
exclusively  Yiddish-speaking  father  and  mother. 
He  always  shows  a  great  fear  that  I  should  be 
ashamed  of  his  parents  and  tries  to  show  them 
in  the  best  light.  When  he  translates,  he  ex- 
presses, in  his  manner,  great  affection  and  ten- 
derness toward  these  people  whom  he  feels  he  is 
protecting ;  he  not  merely  turns  their  Yiddish 
into  good  English,  but  modifies  the  substance  of 
what  they  say  in  order  to  make  them  appear 
presentable,  less  outlandish  and  queer.  He  also 
manifests  cleverness  in  translating  for  his  par- 
ents what  I  say  in  English.  When  he  finds  that 
I  can  speak  Yiddish  and  therefore  can  converse 
heart  to  heart  with  the  old  people,  he  is  de- 
lighted. His  face  beams,  and  he  expresses  in 
every  way  that  deep  pleasure  which  a  person 
takes  in  the  satisfaction  of  honored  proteges." 

The  third  considerable  influence  in  the  life  of 
the  Ghetto  boy  is  that  of  the  socialists.  I  am  in- 
clined to  think  that  this  is  the  least  important 
and  the  least  desirable  of  the  three  in  its  effect 
on  his  character. 

33 


Socialism  as  it  is  agitated  in  the  Jewish 
quarter  consists  in  a  wholesale  rejection,  often 
founded  on  a  misunderstanding,  of  both  Ameri- 
can and  Hebraic  ideals.  The  socialists  harp 
monotonously  on  the  relations  between  capital 
and  labor,  the  injustice  of  classes,  and  assume 
literature  to  comprise  one  school  alone,  the  Rus- 
sian, at  the  bottom  of  which  there  is  a  strongly- 
anarchistic  and  reactionary  impulse.  The  son 
of  a  socialist  laborer  lives  in  a  home  where  the 
main  doctrines  are  two :  that  the  old  religion  is 
rubbish  and  that  American  institutions  were  in- 
vented to  exploit  the  workingman.  The  natural 
effects  on  such  a  boy  are  two  :  a  tendency  to  look 
with  distrust  at  the  genuinely  American  life  about 
him,  and  to  reject  the  old  implicit  piety. 

The  ideal  situation  for  this  young  Jew  would 
be  that  where  he  could  become  an  integral  part 
of  American  life  without  losing  the  seriousness 
of  nature  developed  by  Hebraic  tradition  and 
education.  At  present  he  feels  a  conflict  be- 
tween these  two  influences :  his  youthful  ardor 
and  ambition  lead  him  to  prefer  the  progressive, 
if  chaotic  and  uncentred',  American  life ;  but  his 
conscience  does  not  allow  him  entire  peace  in  a 
situation  which  involves  a  chasm  between  him 
and  his  parents  and  their  ideals.  If  he  could 
find  along  the  line  of  his  more  exciting  interests 

34 


> 


— the  American — something  that  would  fill  the 
deeper  need  of  his  nature,  his  problem  would 
receive  a  happy  solution. 

At  present,  however,  the  powers  that  make  for 
the  desired  synthesis  of  the  old  and  the  new  are 
fragmentary  and  unimportant.  They  consist 
largely  in  more  or  less  charitable  institutions 
such  as  the  University  Settlement,  the  Educa- 
tional Alliance,  and  those  free  Hebrew  schools 
which  are  carried  on  with  definite  reference  to 
the  boy  as  an  American  citizen.  The  latter  dif- 
fer from  the  chaiders  "  in  several  respects.  The 
important  difference  is  that  these  schools  are 
better  organized,  have  better  teachers,  and  have 
as  a  conscious  end  the  supplementing  of  the 
boy's  common  school  education.  The  attempt 
is  to  add  to  the  boy's  secular  training  an  ethical 
and  religious  training  through  the  intelligent 
study  of  the  Bible.  It  is  thought  that  an  ac- 
quaintance with  the  old  literature  of  the  Jews  is 
calculated  to  deepen  and  spiritualize  the  boy's 
nature. 

The  Educational  Alliance  is  a  still  better  or- 
ganized and  more  intelligent  institution,  having 
much  more  the  same  purpose  in  view  as  the  best 
Hebrew  schools.  Its  avowed  purpose  is  to  com- 
bine the  American  and  Hebrew  elements,  recon- 
cile fathers  and  sons  by  making  the  former  more 

35 


American  and  the  latter  more  Hebraic,  and  in 
that  way  improve  the  home  life  of  the  quarter. 
With  the  character  of  the  University  Settlement 
nearly  everybody  is  familiar.  It  falls  in  line 
with  Anglo-Saxon  charitable  institutions,  forms 
classes,  improves  the  condition  of  the  poor,  and 
acts  as  an  ethical  agent.  But,  tho  such  insti- 
tutions as  the  above  may  do  a  great  deal  of  good, 
they  are  yet  too  fragmentary  and  external,  are 
too  little  a  vital  growth  from  the  conditions,  to 
supply  the  demand  for  a  serious  life  which  at  the 
same  time  shall  be  American. 

But  the  Ghetto  boy  is  making  use  of  his  heter- 
ogeneous opportunities  with  the  greatest  energy 
and  ambition.  The  public  schools  are  filled  with 
little  Jews ;  the  night  schools  of  the  east  side  are 
practically  used  by  no  other  race.  City  College, 
New  York  University,  and  Columbia  University 
are  graduating  Russian  Jews  in  numbers  rapidly 
increasing.  Many  lawyers,  indeed,  children  of 
patriarchal  Jews,  have  very  large  practices  al- 
ready, and  some  of  them  belong  to  solid  firms  on 
Wall  Street ;  although  as  to  business  and  finan- 
cial matters  they  have  not  yet  attained  to  the 
most  spectacular  height.  Then  there  are  innu- 
merable boys'  debating  clubs,  ethical  clubs,  and 
literary  clubs  in  the  east  side ;  altogether  there 
is  an  excitement  in  ideas  and  an  enthusiastic 

3^> 


energy  for  acquiring  knowledge  which  has  inter- 
esting analogy  to  the  hopefulness  and  acquisitive 
desire  of  the  early  Renaissance.  It  is  a  mistake 
to  think  that  the  young  Hebrew  turns  naturally 
to  trade.  He  turns  his  energy  to  whatever  offers 
the  best  opportunities  for  broader  life  and  suc- 
cess. Other  things  besides  business  are  open  to 
him  in  this  country,  and  he  is  improving  his 
chance  for  the  higher  education  as  devotedly  as 
he  has  improved  his  opportunities  for  success  in 
business. 

It  is  easy  to  see  that  the  Ghetto  boy's  growing 
Americanism  will  be  easily  triumphant  at  once 
over  the  old  traditions  and  the  new  socialism. 
Whether  or  not  he  will  be  able  to  retain  his 
moral  earnestness  and  native  idealism  will  de- 
pend not  so  much  upon  him  as  upon  the  develop- 
ment of  American  life  as  a  whole.  What  we 
need  at  the  present  time  more  than  anything  else 
is  a  spiritual  unity  such  as,  perhaps,  will  only  be 
the  distant  result  of  our  present  special  activities. 
We  need  something  similar  to  the  spirit  under- 
lying the  national  and  religious  unity  of  the 
orthodox  Jewish  culture. 

Altho  the  young  men  of  the  Ghetto  who 
represent  at  once  the  most  intelligent  and  the 
most  progressively  American  are,  for  the  most 
part,  floundering  about  without  being  able  to 

37 


find  the  social  growths  upon  which  they  can  rest 
as  true  Americans  while  retaining  their  spiritual 
and  religious  earnestness,  there  are  yet  a  small 
number  of  them  who  have  already  attained  a 
synthesis  not  lacking  in  the  ideal.  I  know  a 
young  artist,  a  boy  born  in  the  Ghetto,  who  be- 
gan his  conscious  American  life  with  contempt  for 
the  old  things,  but  who  with  growing  culture  has 
learned  to  perceive  the  beauty  of  the  traditions 
and  faith  of  his  race.  He  puts  into  his  paint- 
ings of  the  types  of  Hester  Street  an  imagina- 
tive, almost  religious,  idealism,  and  his  artistic 
sympathy  seems  to  extend  particularly  to  the  old 
people.  He,  for  one,  has  become  reconciled  to 
the  spirit  of  his  father  without  ceasing  to  be  an 
American.  And  he  is  not  alone.  There  are 
other  young  Jews,  of  American  university  edu- 
cation, of  strong  ethical  and  spiritual  character, 
who  are  devoting  themselves  to  the  work  of 
forming,  among  the  boys  of  the  Ghetto,  an  ideal 
at  once  American  and  consistent  with  the  spirit 
at  the  heart  of  the  Hebraic  tradition. 

THE  ^'INTELLECTUALS" 

Between  the  old  people,  with  their  religion, 
their  traditions,  the  life  pointing  to  the  past,  and 
the  boy  with  his  young  life  eagerly  absorbent  of 
the  new  tendencies,  is  a  third  class  which  may 

3S 


be  called  the  Intellectuals  "  of  the  Ghetto.  This 
is  the  most  picturesque  and  interesting,  altho 
not  the  most  permanently  significant,  of  all.  The 
members  of  this  class  are  interesting  for  what 
they  are  rather  than  for  what  they  have  been  or 
for  what  they  may  become.  They  are  the  anar- 
chists, the  socialists,  the  editors,  the  writers; 
some  of  the  scholars,  poets,  playwrights  and 
actors  of  the  quarter.  They  are  the  ''enlight- 
ened" ones  who  are  at  once  neither  orthodox 
Jews  nor  Americans.  Coming  from  Russia,  they 
are  reactionary  in  their  political  opinions,  and  in 
matters  of  taste  and  literary  ideals  are  Euro- 
peans rather  than  Americans.  When  they  die 
they  will  leave  nothing  behind  them;  but  while 
they  live  they  include  the  most  educated,  forcible, 
and  talented  personalities  of  the  quarter.  Most 
of  them  are  socialists,  and,  as  I  pointed  out  in 
the  last  section,  socialism  is  not  a  permanently 
nutritive  element  in  the  life  of  the  Ghetto,  for  as 
yet  the  Ghetto  has  not  learned  to  know  the  con- 
ditions necessary  to  American  life,  and  can  not, 
therefore,  effectively  react  against  them. 

It  is  this  class  which  contains,  however,  the 
many  men  of  ''ideas"  who  bring  about  in  certain 
circles  a  veritable  intellectual  fermentation  ;  and 
are  therefore  most  interesting  from  what  might 
be  called  a  literary  point  of  view,  as  well  as  of 

39 


great  importance  in  the  education  of  the  people. 
Gifted  Russian  Jews  hold  forth  passionately  to 
crowds  of  working  men;  devoted  writers  exploit 
in  the  Yiddish  newspapers  the  principles  of 
their  creed  and  take  violent  part  in  the  labor 
agitation  of  the  east  side ;  or  produce  realistic 
sketches  of  the  life  in  the  quarter,  underlying 
which  can  be  felt  the  same  kind  of  revolt  which  is 
apparent  in  the  analogous  literature  of  Russia. 
The  intellectual  excitement  in  the  air  causes 
many  "splits"  among  the  socialists.  They 
gather  in  hostile  camps,  run  rival  organs,  each 
prominent  man  has  his  ''patriots,"  or  faithful 
adherents  who  support  him  right  or  wrong. 
Intense  personal  abuse  and  the  most  violent 
denunciation  of  opposing  principles  are  the  rule. 
Mellowness,  complacency,  geniality,  and  calm- 
ness are  qualities  practically  unknown  to  the 
intellectual  Russian  Jews,  who,  driven  from  the 
old  country,  now  possess  the  first  opportunity  to 
express  themselves.  On  the  other  hand  they 
are  free  of  the  stupid  Philistinism  of  content  and 
are  not  primarily  interested  in  the  dollar.  Their 
poets  sing  pathetically  of  the  sweat-shops,  of 
universal  brotherhood,  of  the  abstract  rights  of 
man.  Their  enthusiastic  young  men  gather 
every  evening  in  cafes  of  the  quarter  and  become 
habitually  intoxicated  with  the  excitement  of 

40 


IN  THESE  CAFES  THEY  MEET  AFTER  THE  THEATRE 
OR  AN  EVENING  LECTURE 


ideas.  In  their  restless  and  feverish  eyes  shines 
the  intense  idealism  of  the  combined  Jew  and 
Russian — the  moral  earnestness  of  the  Hebrew 
united  with  the  passionate,  rebellious  mental 
activity  of  the  modern  Muscovite.  In  these  cafes 
they  meet  after  the  theatre  or  an  evening  lecture 
and  talk  into  the  morning  hours.  The  ideal, 
indeed,  is  alive  within  them.  The  defect  of  their 
intellectual  ideas  is  that  they  are  not  founded  on 
historical  knowledge,  or  on  knowledge  of  the 
conditions  with  which  they  have  to  cope.  In 
their  excitement  and  extremeness  they  resemble 
the  spirit  of  the  French  intellectuals"  of  1789 
rather  than  that  more  conservative  feeling  which 
has  always  directed  the  development  of  Anglo- 
Saxon  communities. 

Among  the  "intellectuals"  may  be  classed  a 
certain  number  of  poets,  dramatists,  musicians, 
and  writers,  who  are  neither  socialists  nor  anar- 
chists, constituting  what  might  roughly  be  called 
the  literary  ''Bohemia"  of  the  quarter;  men  who 
pursue  their  art  for  the  love  of  it  simply,  or  who 
are  thereto  impelled  by  the  necessity  of  making 
a  precarious  living;  men  really  without  ideas  in 
the  definite,  belligerent  sense,  often  uneducated, 
but  often  of  considerable  native  talent.  There 
are  also  many  men  of  brains  who  form  a  large 
professional  class — doctors,  lawyers,  and  dentists 


—and  who  yet  are  too  old  when  they  come  to 
America  to  be  thoroughly  identified  with  the  life. 
They  are,  however,  a  useful  part  of  the  Jewish 
community,  and,  like  others  of  the  intellectual " 
class,  are  often  men  of  great  devotion,  who  have 
left  comparative  honor  and  comfort  in  the  old 
country  in  order  to  live  and  work  with  the  perse- 
cuted or  otherwise  less  fortunate  brethren. 

The  greater  number  of  the  following  chapters 
deal  with  the  men  of  this  intellectual "  class, 
their  personalities,  their  literary  work  and  the 
light  it  throws  upon  the  life  of  the  people  in  the 
New  York  Ghetto. 


43 


Chapter  Two 


^ropfjets  t«ttl)out  Honor 

^» 

SUBMERGED  SCHOLARS 

A  ragged  man,  who  looks  like  a  peddler  or  a 
beggar,  picking  his  way  through  the  crowded 
misery  of  Hester  Street,  or  ascending  the  stairs 
of  one  of  the  dingy  tenement-houses  full  of 
sweat-shops  that  line  that  busy  mart  of  the  poor 
Ghetto  Jew,  may  be  a  great  Hebrew  scholar.  He 
may  be  able  to  speak  and  write  the  ancient 
tongue  with  the  facility  of  a  modern  language — 
as  fluently  as  the  ordinary  Jew  makes  use  of  the 
jargon,"  the  Yiddish  of  the  people;  he  may  be 
a  manifold  author  with  a  deep  and  pious  love  for 
the  beautiful  poetry  in  his  literature ;  and  in 
character  an  enthusiast,  a  dreamer,  or  a  good 
and  reverend  old  man.  But  no  matter  what  his 
attainments  and  his  quality  he  is  unknown  and 
unhonored,  for  he  has  pinned  his  faith  to  a 
declining  cause,  writes  his  passionate  accents  in 
a  tongue  more  and  more  unknown  even  to  the 
cultivated  Jew ;  and  consequently  amid  the 
crowding  and  material  interests  of  the  new  world 

44 


he  is  submerged — poor  in  physical  estate  and  his 
moral  capital  unrecognized  by  the  people  among 
whom  he  lives. 

Not  only  unrecognized  by  the  ignorant  and  the 
busy  and  their  teachers  the  rabbis,  who  in  New 
York  are  frequently  nearly  as  ignorant  as  the 


HE  IS  UNKNOWN  AND  UNHONORED 


people,  he  is  also  (as  his  learning  is  limited 
largely  to  the  literature  of  his  race)  looked  down 
upon  by  the  influential  and  intellectual  element 
of  the  Ghetto — an  element  socialistic,  in  literary 

45 


sympathy  Russian  rather  than  Hebraic,  intolerant 
of  everything  not  violently  modern,  wedded  to 

movements"  and  scornful  of  the  past.  The 
'^maskil,"  therefore,  or  ''man  of  wisdom  " — the 
Hebrew  scholar — is  called  ''old  fogy,"  or  "dilet- 
tante," by  the  up-to-date  socialists. 

Of  such  men  there  are  several  in  the  humble 
corners  of  the  New  York  Ghetto.  One  peddles 
for  a  living,  another  has  a  small  printing-office  in 
a  basement  on  Canal  Street,  a  third  occasionally 
tutors  in  some  one  of  many  languages  and  sells 
a  patent  medicine,  and  a  fourth  is  the  principal 
of  the  Talmud-Thora,  a  Hebrew  school  in  the 
Harlem  Ghetto,  where  he  teaches  the  children 
to  read,  write,  and  pray  in  the  Hebrew  language. 

Moses  Reicherson  is  the  name  of  the  principal. 
"Man  of  wisdom"  of  the  purest  kind,  probably 
the  finest  Hebrew  grammarian  in  New  York,  and 
one  of  the  finest  in  the  world,  his  income  from 
his  position  at  the  head  of  the  school  is  $5  a 
week.  He  is  seventy-three  years  old,  wears  a 
thick  gray  beard,  a  little  cap  on  his  head,  and  a 
long  black  coat.  His  wife  is  old  and  bent.  They 
are  alone  in  their  miserable  little  apartment  on 
East  One  Hundred  and  Sixth  Street.  Their  son 
died  a  year  or  two  ago,  and  to  cover  the  funeral 
expenses  Mr.  Reicherson  tried  in  vain  to  sell  his 
"  Encyclopaedia  Britannica."    But,  nevertheless, 

46 


the  old  scholar,  who  had  been  bending  over  his 
closely  written  manuscript,  received  the  visitor 
with  almost  cheerful  politeness,  and  told  the 
story  of  his  work  and  of  his  ambitions.  Of  his 
difficulties  and  privations  he  said  little,  but  they 
shone  through  his  words  and  in  the  character  of 
the  room  in  which  he  lived. 

Born  in  Vilna,  sometimes  called  the  Jerusalem 
of  Lithuania  or  the  Athens  of  modern  Judaea 
because  of  the  number  of  enlightened  Jews  who 
have  been  born  there,  many  of  whom  now  live 
in  the  Russian  Jewish  quarter  of  New  York,  he 
has  retained  the  faith  of  his  orthodox  parents,  a 
faith,  however,  springing  from  the  pure  origin  of 
Judaism  rather  than  holding  to  the  hair-splitting 
distinctions  later  embodied  in  the  Talmud.  He 
was  a  teacher  of  Hebrew  in  his  native  town  for 
many  years,  where  he  stayed  until  he  came  to 
New  York  some  years  ago  to  be  near  his  son. 
His  two  great  intellectual  interests,  subordinated 
indeed  to  the  love  of  the  old  literature  and 
religion,  have  been  Hebrew  grammar  and  the 
moral  fables  of  several  languages.  On  the 
former  he  has  written  an  important  work,  and  of 
the  latter  has  translated  much  of  Lessing's  and 
Gellert's  work  into  pure  Hebrew.  He  has  also 
translated  into  his  favorite  tongue  the  Russian 
fable-writer  Krilow;  has  written  fables  of  his 

47 


own,  and  a  Hebrew  commentary  on  the  Bible 
in  twenty-four  volumes.  He  loves  the  fables 
because  they  teach  the  people  and  are  real 
criticism ;  they  are  profound  and  combine  fancy 
and  thought."  Many  of  these  are  still  in  manu- 
script, which  is  characteristic  of  much  of  the 
work  of  these  scholars,  for  they  have  no  money, 
and  publishers  do  not  run  after  Hebrew  books. 
Also  unpublished,  written  in  lovingly  minute 
characters,  he  has  a  Hebrew  prayer-book  in 
many  volumes.  He  has  written  hundreds  of 
articles  for  the  Hebrew  weeklies  and  monthlies, 
which  are  fairly  numerous  in  this  country,  but 
which  seldom  can  afford  to  pay  their  contributors. 
At  present  he  writes  exclusively  for  a  Hebrew 
weekly  published  in  Chicago,  Regeneration,  the 
object  of  which  is  to  promote  **the  knowledge 
of  the  ancient  Hebrew  language  and  literature, 
and  to  regenerate  the  spirit  of  the  nation."  For 
this  he  receives  no  pay,  the  editor  being  almost 
as  poor  as  himself.  But  he  writes  willingly  for 
the  love  of  the  cause,  "  for  universal  good  "  ;  for 
Reicherson,  in  common  with  the  other  neglected 
scholars,  is  deeply  interested  in  revivifying  what 
is  now  among  American  Jews  a  dead  language. 
He  believes  that  in  this  way  only  can  the  Jewish 
people  be  taught  the  good  and  the  true. 

When  the  national  language  and  literature 

48 


live,"  he  said,  ''the  nation  lives; 
when  dead,  so  is  the  nation.        ^  '^'^^l: 
The  holy  tongue  in  which  the 
Bible  was  written  must  not 
die.    If  it  should,  much 
of  the  truth  of  the  Bible, 
many  of  its  spiritual  se- 
crets, much  of  its  beau-    •  " 
tiful  poetry,  would  be  v 
lost.    I  have  gone  deep  ; 
into  the  Bible,  that 
greatest  book,  all  my 

^^A  T  ^r^^,.  MOSES  REICHERSON 

life,  and  I  know  many  oi 

its  secrets."  He  beamed  with  pride  as  he  said 
these  words,  and  his  sense  of  the  beauty  of  the 
Hebrew  spirit  and  the  Hebrew  literature  led  him 
to  speak  wonderingly  of  Anti-Semitism.  This 
cause  seemed  to  him  to  be  founded  on  ignorance 
of  the  Bible.  '*  If  the  Anti-Semites  would  only 
study  the  Bible,  would  go  deep  into  the  knowl- 
edge of  Hebrew  and  the  teaching  of  Christ,  then 
everything  would  be  sweet  and  well.  If  they 
would  spend  a  little  of  that  money  in  supporting 
the  Hebrew  language  and  literature  and  ex- 
plaining the  sacred  books  which  they  now  use 
against  our  race,  they  would  see  that  they  are 
Anti-Christians  rather  than  Anti-Semites." 
The  scholar  here  bethought  himself  of  an  old 

49 


fable  he  had  translated  into  Hebrew.  Cold  and 
Warmth  make  a  wager  that  the  traveller  will 
unwrap  his  cloak  sooner  to  one  than  to  the 
other.  The  fierce  wind  tries  its  best,  but  at 
every  cold  blast  the  traveller  only  wraps  his 
cloak  the  closer.  But  when  the  sun  throws  its 
rays  the  wayfarer  gratefully  opens  his  breast  to 
the  warming  beams.  ^'Love  solves  all  things," 
said  the  old  man,  and  hate  closes  up  the  channels 
to  knowledge  and  virtue."  Believing  the  Pope 
to  be  a  good  man  with  a  knowledge  of  the 
Bible,  he  wanted  to  write  him  about  the  Anti- 
Semites,  but  desisted  on  the  reflection  that  the 
Pope  was  very  old  and  overburdened,  and  that 
the  letter  would  probably  fall  into  the  hands  of 
the  cardinals. 

All  this  was  sweetly  said,  for  about  him  there 
was  nothing  of  the  attitude  of  complaint.  His 
wife  once  or  twice  during  the  interview  touched 
upon  their  personal  condition,  but  her  husband 
severely  kept  his  mind  on  the  universal  truths,  and 
only  when  questioned  admitted  that  he  would 
like  a  little  more  money,  in  order  to  publish  his 
books  and  to  enable  him  to  think  with  more 
concentration  about  the  Hebrew  language  and 
literature.  There  was  no  bitterness  in  his  refer- 
ence to  the  neglect  of  Hebrew  scholarship  in  the 
Ghetto.    His  interest  was  impersonal  and  de- 


tached,  and  his  regret  at  the  decadence  of  the 
language  seemed  noble  and  disinterested;  and, 
unlike  some  of  the  other  scholars,  the  touch  of 
warm  humanity  was  in  everything  he  said. 
Indeed,  he  is  rather  the  learned  teacher  of  the 
people  with  deep  religious  and  ethical  sense  than 
the  scholar  who  cares  only  for  learning.  "  In  the 
name  of  God,  adieu ! "  he  said,  with  quiet  intensity 
when  the  visitor  withdrew. 

Contrasting  sharply  in  many  respects  with 
this  beautiful  old  teacher  is  the  man  who  peddles 
from  tenement-house  to  tenement-house  in  the 
down-town  Ghetto,  to  support  himself  and  his 
three  young  children.  S.  B.  Schwartzberg,  unlike 
most  of  the  ''submerged"  scholars,  is  still  a 
young  man,  only  thirty-seven  years  old,  but  he 
is  already  discouraged,  bitter,  and  discontented. 
He  feels  himself  the  apostle  of  a  lost  cause — the 
regeneration  in  New  York  of  the  old  Hebrew 
language  and  literature.  His  great  enterprise 
in  life  has  failed.  He  has  now  given  it  up,  and 
the  natural  vividness  and  intensity  of  his  nature 
get  satisfaction  in  the  strenuous  abuse  of  the 
Jews  of  the  Ghetto. 

He  was  born  in  Warsaw,  Poland,  the  son  of  a 
distinguished  rabbi.  In  common  with  many 
Russian  and  Polish  Jews,  he  early  obtained  a 
living  knowledge  of  the  Hebrew  language,  and 

5i 


a  great  love  of  the  literature,  which  he  knows 
thoroughly,  altho,  unlike  Reicherson  and  a 
scholar  who  is  to  be  mentioned,  Rosenberg,  he 
has  not  contributed  to  the  literature  in  a  scientific 
sense.  He  is  slightly  bald,  with  burning  black 
eyes,  an  enthusiastic  and  excited  manner,  and 
talks  with  almost  painful  earnestness. 

Three  years  ago  Schwartzberg  came  to  this 
country  with  a  great  idea  in  his  head.  **In  this 
free  country,"  he  thought  to  himself,  where 
there  are  so  many  Russian  and  Polish  Jews,  it 
is  a  pity  that  our  tongue  is  dying,  is  falling  into 
decay,  and  that  the  literature  and  traditions  that 
hold  our  race  together  are  being  undermined  by 
materialism  and  ethical  skepticism."  He  had  a 
little  money,  and  he  decided  he  would  establish 
a  journal  in  the  interests  of  the  Hebrew  language 
and  literature.  No  laws  would  prevent  him  here 
from  speaking  his  mind  in  his  beloved  tongue. 
He  would  bring  into  vivid  being  again  the  national 
spirit  of  his  people,  make  them  love  with  the  old 
fervor  their  ancient  traditions  and  language.  It 
was  the  race's  spirit  of  humanity  and  feeling  for 
the  ethical  beauty,  not  the  special  creed  of 
Judaism,  for  which  he  and  the  other  scholars 
care  little,  that  filled  him  with  the  enthusiasm  of 
an  apostle.  In  his  monthly  magazine,  the  Western 
Lightf  he  put  his  best  efforts,  his  best  thoughts 

52 


about  ethical  truths  and  literature.  The  poet 
Dolitzki  contributed  in  purest  Hebrew  verse,  as 
did  many  other  Ghetto  lights.  But  it  received 
no  support,  few  bought  it,  and  it  lasted  only  a 
year.  Then  he  gave  it  up,  bankrupt  in  money 
and  hope.  That  was  several  years  ago,  and 
since  then  he  has  peddled  for  a  living. 

The  failure  has  left  in  Schwartzberg's  soul  a 
passionate  hatred  of  what  he  calls  the  material- 
ism of  the  Jews  in  America.  Only  in  Europe,  he 
thinks,  does  the  love  of  the  spiritual  remain  with 
them.  Of  the  rabbis  of  the  Ghetto  he  spoke  with 
bitterness.  **They,"  he  said,  *'are  the  natural 
teachers  of  the  people.  They  could  do  much  for 
the  Hebrew  literature  and  language.  Why  don't 
they?  Because  they  know  no  Hebrew  and  have 
no  culture.  In  Russia  the  Jews  demand  that 
their  rabbis  should  be  learned  and  spiritual,  but 
here  they  are  ignorant  and  materialistic."  So 
Mr.  Schwartzberg  wrote  a  pamphlet  which  is 
now  famou^  in  the  Ghetto.  ''I  wrote  it  with  my 
heart's  blood,"  he  said,  his  eyes  snapping.  In 
it  I  painted  the  spiritual  condition  of  the  Jews  in 
New  York  in  the  gloomiest  of  colors." 

"  It  is  terrible,"  he  proceeded  vehemently. 
**Not  one  Hebrew  magazine  can  exist  in  this 
country.  They  all  fail,  and  yet  there  are  many 
beautiful  Hebrew  writers  to-day.   When  Dolitzki 

53 


was  twenty  years  old  in  Russia  he  was  looked 
up  to  as  a  great  poet.  But  what  do  the  Jews 
care  about  him  here  ?  For  he  writes  in  Hebrew ! 
Why,  Hebrew  scholars  are  regarded  by  the  Jews 
as  tramps,  as  useless  beings.  Driven  from  Russia 
because  we  are  Jews,  we  are  despised  in  New 
York  because  we  are  Hebrew  scholars!  The 
rabbis,  too,  despise  the  learned  Hebrew,  and 
they  have  a  fearful  influence  on  the  ignorant 
people.  If  they  can  dress  well  and  speak  English 
it  is  all  they  want.  It  is  a  shame  how  low-minded 
these  teachers  of  the  people  are.  I  was  born  of 
a  rabbi,  and  brought  up  by  him,  but  in  Russia 
they  are  for  literature  and  the  spirit,  while  in 
America  it  is  just  the  other  way." 

The  discouraged  apostle  of  Hebrew  literature 
now  sees  no  immediate  hope  for  the  cause. 
What  seems  to  him  the  most  beautiful  lyric  poetry 
in  the  world  he  thinks  doomed  to  the  imperfect 
understanding  of  generations  for  whom  the 
language  does  not  live.  The  only  ultimate  hope 
is  in  the  New  Jerusalem.  Consequently  the  fiery 
scholar,  altho  not  a  Zionist,  thinks  well  of 
the  movement  as  tending  to  bring  the  Jews 
again  into  a  nation  which  shall  revive  the  old 
tongue  and  traditions.  Mr.  Schwartzberg  re- 
ferred to  some  of  the  other  submerged  scholars 
of  the  Ghetto.    His  eyes  burned  with  indignation 

54 


when  he  spoke  of  Moses  Reicherson.  He  could 
hardly  control  himself  at  the  thought  that  the 
greatest  Hebrew  grammarian  living,  *^an  old 
man,  too,  a  reverend  old  man,"  should  be  brought 
to  such  a  pass.  In  the  same  strain  of  outrage 
he  referred  to  another  old  man,  a  scholar  who 
would  be  as  poor  as  Reicherson  and  himself 
were  it  not  for  his  wife,  who  is  a  dressmaker. 
It  is  she  who  keeps  him  out  of  the  category  of 
''submerged"  scholars. 

But  the  Rev.  H.  Rosenberg,  of  whose  condition 
Schwartzberg  also  bitterly  complained,  is  indeed 
submerged.  He  runs  a  printing-office  in  a  Canal 
Street  basement,  where  he  sits  in  the  damp  all 
day  long  waiting  for  an  opportunity  to  publish 
his  magnum  opus,  sl  cyclopedia  of  Biblical  litera- 
ture, containing  an  historical  and  geographical 
description  of  the  persons,  places,  and  objects 
mentioned  in  the  Bible.  All  the  Ghetto  scholars 
speak  of  this  work  with  bated  breath,  as  a 
tremendously  learned  affair.  Only  two  volumes 
of  it  have  been  published.  To  give  the  remainder 
to  the  world,  Mr.  Rosenberg  is  waiting  for  his 
children,  who  are  nearly  self-supporting,  to 
contribute  their  mite.  He  is  a  man  of  sixty-two, 
with  the  high,  bald  forehead  of  a  scholar.  For 
twenty  years  he  was  a  rabbi  in  Russia,  and 
has  preached  in  thirteen  synagogues.    He  has 

55 


been  nine  years  in  New  York,  and,  in  addition  to 
the  great  cyclopedia,  has  written,  but  not  pub- 
lished, a  cyclopedia  of  Talmudical  literature. 
A  History  of  the  Jews,"  in  the  Russian  lan- 
guage, and  a  Russian  novel,  The  Jew  of 
Trient,"  are  among  his  published  works.  He  is 
one  of  the  most  learned  of  all  of  these  men  who 
have  a  living,  as  well  as  an  exact,  knowledge  of 
what  is  generally  regarded  as  a  dead  language 

and  literature. 

Altho  he  is  waiting  to 
^  publish  the  great  cyclo- 

•  K  i  pedia,  he  is  patient  and 

_  cold.     He   has  not  the 

W^'^h  sweet  enthusiasm  of 

Reicherson,  and  not  the 
vehement    and  partisan 
passion  of  Schwartzberg. 
He  has  the  coldness  of  old 
age,  without  its  spiritual 
glow,  and  scholarship  is 
the  only  idea  that  moves 
him.  Against  the  rabbis 
he  has  no  complaint  to 
make ;  with    them,  he 
said,  he  had  nothing  to 
do.    He  thinks  that 
Schwartzbergisex- 


/ 


REV.  H.  ROSENBERG 


treme  and  unfair,  and  that  there  are  good 
and  bad  rabbis  in  New  York.  He  is  reserved 
and  undemonstrative,  and  speaks  only  in  reply. 
When  the  rather  puzzled  visitor  asked  him  if 
there  was  anything  in  which  he  was  interested, 
he  replied,  ^*Yes,  in  my  cyclopedia."  The  only 
point  at  which  he  betrayed  feeling  was  when  he 
quoted  proudly  the  words  of  a  reviewer  of  the 
cyclopedia,  who  had  wondered  where  Dr.  Rosen- 
berg had  obtained  all  his  learning.  He  stated 
indifferently  that  the  Hebrew  language  and 
literature  is  dead  and  cannot  be  revived. 
know,"  he  said,  ''that  Hebrew  literature  does 
not  pay,  but  I  cannot  stop."  With  no  indigna- 
tion, he  remarked  that  the  Jews  in  New  York 
have  no  ideals.  It  was  a  fact  objectively  to  be 
deplored,  but  for  which  he  personally  had  no  emo- 
tion, all  of  that  being  reserved  for  his  cyclopedia. 

These  three  men  are  perfect  types  of  the 
"submerged  Hebrew  scholar"  of  the  New  York 
Ghetto.  Reicherson  is  the  typical  religious 
teacher ;  Schwartzberg,  the  enthusiast,  who  loves 
the  language  like  a  mistress,  and  Rosenberg,  the 
cool  ''man  of  wisdom,"  who  only  cares  for  the 
perfection  of  knowledge.  Altho  there  are  several 
others  on  the  east  side  who  approach  the  type, 
they  fall  more  or  less  short  of  it.  Either  they 
are  not  really  scholars  in  the  old  tongue,  altho 

57 


reading  and  even  writing  it,  or  through  business 
or  otherwise  they  have  raised  themselves  above 
the  pathetic  point.  Thus  Dr.  Benedict  Ben- 
Zion,  one  of  the  poorest  of  all,  being  reduced  to 


"SUBMERGED  SCHOLARS" 


occasional  tutoring,  and  the  sale  of  a  patent 
medicine  for  a  living,  is  not  specifically  a  scholar. 
He  writes  and  reads  Hebrew,  to  be  sure,  but  is 
also  a  playwright  in  the  ''jargon;"  has  been  a 

5« 


Christian  missionary  to  his  own  people  in  Egypt, 
Constantinople,  and  Rumania,  a  doctor  for  many 
years,  a  teacher  in  several  languages,  one  who 
has  turned  his  hand  to  everything,  and  whose 
heart  and  mind  are  not  so  purely  Hebraic  as 
those  of  the  men  I  have  mentioned.  He  even  is 
seen,  more  or  less,  with  Ghetto  literati  who  are 
essentially  hostile  to  what  the  true  Hebrew 
scholar  holds  by — a  body  of  Russian  Jewish 
socialists  of  education,  who  in  their  Grand  and 
Canal  Street  cafes  express  every  night  in  impas- 
sioned language  their  contempt  for  whatever  is 
old  and  historical. 

Then,  there  are  J.  D.  Eisenstein,  the  youngest 
and  one  of  the  most  learned,  but  perhaps  the 
least  submerged  "  of  them  all ;  Gerson  Rosen- 
schweig,  a  wit,  who  has  collected  the  epigrams 
of  the  Hebrew  literature,  added  many  of  his 
own,  and  written  in  Hebrew  a  humorous 
treatise  on  America — a  very  up-to-date  Jew, 
who,  like  Schwartzberg,  tried  to  run  a  Hebrew 
weekly,  but  when  he  failed,  was  not  discour- 
aged, and  turned  to  business  and  politics  in- 
stead ;  and  Joseph  Low  Sossnitz,  a  very  learned 
scholar,  of  dry  and  sarcastic  tendency,  who 
only  recently  has  risen  above  the  submerged 
point.  Among  the  latter's  most  notable  pub- 
lished books  are  a  philosophical  attack  on  ma- 

59 


terialism,  a  treatise  on  the  sun,  and  a  work  on 
the  philosophy  of  religion. 

It  is  the  wrench  between  the  past  and  the 
present  which  has  placed  these  few  scholars  in 
their  present  pathetic  condition.  Most  of  them 
are  old,  and  when  they  die  the  '^maskil"  as  a 
type  will  have  vanished  from  New  York.  In  the 
meantime,  tho  they  starve,  they  must  devote 
themselves  to  the  old  language,  the  old  ideas 
and  traditions  of  culture.  Their  poet,  the  austere 
Dolitzki,  famous  in  Russia  at  the  time  of  the 
revival  of  Hebrew  twenty  years  ago,  is  the  only 
man  in  New  York  who  symbolizes  in  living  verse 
the  spirit  in  which  these  old  men  live,  the  spirit 
of  love  for  the  race  as  most  purely  expressed  in 
the  Hebrew  literature.  This  disinterested  love 
for  the  remote,  this  pathetic  passion  to  keep  the 
dead  alive,  is  what  lends  to  the  lives  of  these 
''submerged"  scholars  a  nobler  quality  than 
what  is  generally  associated  with  the  east  side. 

THE  POOR  RABBIS 

The  rabbis,  as  well  as  the  scholars,  of  the  east 
side  of  New  York  have  their  grievances.  They, 
too,  are  ''submerged,"  like  so  much  in  humanity 
that  is  at  once  intelligent,  poor,  and  out-of-date. 
As  a  lot,  they  are  old,  reverend  men,  with  long 
gray  beards,  long  black  coats  and  little  black 

60 


caps  on  their  heads.  They  are  mainly  very  poor, 
Hve  in  the  barest  of  the  tenement  houses  and 
pursue  a  calling  which  no  longer  involves  much 
honor  or  standing.  In  the  old  country,  in  Russia 
— for  most  of  the  poor  ones  are  Russian — the 
rabbi  is  a  great  person.  He  is  made  rabbi  by  the 
state  and  is  rabbi  all  his  life,  and  the  only  rabbi 
in  the  town,  for  all  the  Jews  in  every  city  form 
one  congregation,  of  which  there  is  but  one  rabbi 
and  one  cantor.  He  is  a  man  always  full  of 
learning  and  piety,  and  is  respected  and  sup- 
ported comfortably  by  the  congregation,  a  tax 
being  laid  on  meat,  salt,  and  other  foodstuffs  for 
his  special  benefit. 

But  in  New  York  it  is  very  different.  Here 
there  are  hundreds  of  congregations,  one  in 
almost  every  street,  for  the  Jews  come  from 
many  different  cities  and  towns  in  the  old  country, 
and  the  New  York  representatives  of  every  little 
place  in  Russia  must  have  their  congregation 
here.  Consequently,  the  congregations  are  for 
the  most  part  small,  poor  and  unimportant.  Few 
can  pay  the  rabbi  more  than  $3  or  $4  a  week, 
and  often,  instead  of  having  a  regular  salary,  he 
is  reduced  to  occasional  fees  for  his  services  at 
weddings,  births  and  holy  festivals  generally. 
Some  very  poor  congregations  get  along  without 
a  rabbi  at  all,  hiring  one  for  special  occasions, 

6i 


but  these  are  congregations  which  are  falling  off 
somewhat  from  their  orthodox  strictness. 

The  result  of  this  state  of  affairs  is  a  pretty 
general  falling  off  in  the  character  of  the  rabbis. 
In  Russia  they  are  learned  men— know  the 
Talmud  and  all  the  commentaries  upon  it  by 
heart — and  have  degrees  from  the  rabbinical 
colleges,  but  here  they  are  often  without  degrees, 
frequently  know  comparatively  little  about  the 
Talmud,  and  are  sometimes  actuated  by  worldly 
motives.  A  few  Jews  coming  to  New 
York  from  some  small  Russian  town, 
will  often  select  for  a  rabbi  the  man 
among  them  who  knows  a  little  more 
of  the  Talmud  than  the  others, 
whether  he  has  ever  studied  for  the 
calling  or  not.  Then,  again,  some 
mere  adventurers  get  into  the  posi- 
tion— men  good  for  nothing,  looking 
for  a  position.  They  clap  a  high  hat 
on  their  heads,  impose  on  a  poor  con- 
gregation with  their  up-to-dateness 
and  become  rabbis  without  learning 
or  piety.  These  "fake  "  rabbis 
— "rabbis  for  business  only" 
— are  often  satirized  in  the  Yid- 
dish plays  given  at  the  Bowery 
theatres.  On  the  stage  they 
62 


are  ridiculous  figures,  ape  American  manners  in 
bad  accents,  and  have  a  keen  eye  for  gain. 

The  genuine,  pious  rabbis  in  the  New  York 
Ghetto  feel,  consequently,  that  they  have  their 
grievances.  They,  the  accomplished  interpre- 
ters of  the  Jewish  law,  are  well-nigh  submerged 
by  the  frauds  that  flood  the  city.  But  this  is  not 
the  only  sorrow  of  the  **real  "  rabbi  of  the  Ghetto. 
The  rabbis  uptown,  the  rich  rabbis,  pay  little 
attention  to  the  sufferings,  moral  and  physical, 
of  their  downtown  brethren.  For  the  most  part 
the  uptown  rabbi  is  of  the  German,  the  down- 
town rabbi  of  the  Russian  branch  of  the  Jewish 
race,  and  these  two  divisions  of  the  Hebrews 
hate  one  another  like  poison.  Last  winter  when 
Zangwill's  dramatized  Children  of  the  Ghetto  was 
produced  in  New  York  the  organs  of  the  swell  up- 
town German-Jew  protested  that  it  was  a  pity  to 
represent  faithfully  in  art  the  sordidness  as  well 
as  the  beauty  of  the  poor  Russian  Ghetto  Jew. 
It  seemed  particularly  baneful  that  the  religious 
customs  of  the  Jews  should  be  thus  detailed  upon 
the  stage.  The  uptown  Jew  felt  a  little  ashamed 
that  the  proletarians  of  his  people  should  be  made 
the  subject  of  literature.  The  downtown  Jews, 
the  Russian  Jews,  however,  received  play  and 
stories  with  delight,  as  expressing  truthfully  their 
life  and  character,  of  which  they  are  not  ashamed. 

63 


Another  cause  of  irritation  between  the  down- 
town and  uptown  rabbis  is  a  difference  of  religion. 
The  uptown  rabbi,  representing  congregations 
larger  in  this  country  and  more  American  in 
comfort  and  tendency,  generally  is  of  the  re- 
formed "  complexion,  a  hateful  thought  to  the 
orthodox  downtown  rabbi,  who  is  loath  to  admit 
that  the  term  rabbi  fits  these  swell  German 
preachers.  He  maintains  that,  since  the  uptown 
rabbi  is,  as  a  rule,  not  only  reformed  "  in  faith, 
but  in  preaching  as  well,  he  is  in  reality  no  rabbi, 
for,  properly  speaking,  a  rabbi  is  simply  an 
interpreter  of  the  law,  one  with  whom  the  Tal- 
mudical  wisdom  rests,  and  who  alone  can  give  it 
out ;  not  one  who  exhorts,  but  who,  on  applica- 
tion, can  untie  knotty  points  of  the  law.  The 
uptown  rabbis  they  call  preachers,"  with  some 
disdain. 

So  that  the  poor,  downtrodden  rabbis — those 
among  them  who  look  upon  themselves  as  the 
only  genuine — have  many  annoyances  to  bear. 
Despised  and  neglected  by  their  rich  brethren, 
without  honor  or  support  in  their  own  poor 
communities,  and  surrounded  by  a  rabble  of 
unworthy  rivals,  the  *'real"  interpreter  of  the 
"law"  in  New  York  is  something  of  an  object 
of  pity. 

Just  who  the  most  genuine  downtown  rabbis 

64 


are  is,  no  doubt,  a  matter  of  dispute.  I  will  not 
attempt  to  determine,  but  will  quote  in  substance 
a  statement  of  Rabbi  Weiss  as  to  genuine 
rabbis,  which  will  include  a  curious  section  of 
the  history  of  the  Ghetto.  He  is  a  jolly  old 
man,  and  smokes  his  pipe  in  a  tenement-house 
room  containing  200  books  of  the  Talmud  and 
allied  writings. 

genuine  rabbi,"  he  said,  "knows  the  law, 
and  sits  most  of  the  time  in  his  room,  ready  to 
impart  it.  If  an  old  woman  comes  in  with  a 
goose  that  has  been  killed,  the  rabbi  can  tell 
her,  after  she  has  explained  how  the  animal  met 
its  death,  whether  or  not  it  is  koshur,  whether  it 
may  be  eaten  or  not.  And  on  any  other  point  of 
diet  or  general  moral  or  physical  hygiene  the 
rabbi  is  ready  to  explain  the  law  of  the  Hebrews 
from  the  time  of  Adam  until  to-day.  It  is  he  who 
settles  many  of  the  quarrels  of  the  neighborhood. 
The  poor  sweat-shop  Jew  comes  to  complain  of 
his  *'boss,"  the  old  woman  to  tell  him  her  dreams 
and  get  his  interpretation  of  them,  the  young 
girl  to  weigh  with  him  questions  of  amorous 
etiquette.  Our  children  do  not  need  to  go  to  the 
Yiddish  theatres  to  learn  about  "greenhorn" 
types.  They  see  all  sorts  of  Ghetto  Jews  in  the 
house  of  the  rabbi,  their  father. 

"  I  myself  was  the  first  genuine  rabbi  on  the 

^^5 


east  side  of  New  York.  I  am  now  sixty-two 
years  old,  and  came  here  sixteen  years  ago — 
came  for  pleasure,  but  my  wife  followed  me,  and 
so  I  had  to  stay." 

Here  the  old  rabbi  smiled  cheerfully.  ''When 
I  came  to  New  York,"  he  proceeded,  ''I  found 
the  Jews  here  in  a  very  bad  way — eating  meat 
that  was  ''thrapho,"  not  allowed,  because  killed 
improperly ;  literally,  killed  by  a  brute.  The 
slaughter-houses  at  that  time  had  no  rabbi  to 
see  that  the  meat  was  properly  killed,  was  koshur 
— all  right. 

''You  can  imagine  my  horror.  The  slaughter- 
houses had  been  employing  an  orthodox  Jew, 
who,  however,  was  not  a  rabbi,  to  see  that  the 
meat  was  properly  killed,  and  he  had  been  doing 
things  all  wrong,  and  the  chosen  people  had 
been  living  abominably.  I  immediately  explained 
the  proper  way  of  killing  meat,  and  since  then 
I  have  regulated  several  slaughter-houses  and 
make  my  living  in  that  way.  I  am  also  rabbi 
of  a  congregation,  but  it  is  so  small  that  it 
doesn't  pay.  The  slaughter-houses  are  more 
profitable." 

These  "submerged"  rabbis  are  not  always  quite 
fair  to  one  another.  Some  east  side  authorities 
maintain  that  the  "  orthodox  Jew "  of  whom 
Rabbi  Weiss  spoke  thus  contemptuously,  was 

66 


THE  RABBI  CAN  TELL  WHETHER  OR  NOT 
IT  IS  KOSHUR 


one  of  the  finest  rabbis  who  ever  came  to  New 
York,  one  of  the  most  erudite  of  Talmudic 
scholars.  Many  congregations  united  to  call 
him  to  America  in  1887,  so  great  was  his  renown 
in  Russia.  But  when  he  reached  New  York  the 
general  fate  of  the  intelligent  adult  immigrant 
overtook  him.  Even  the  orthodox"  in  New 
York  looked  upon  him  as  a  greenhorn"  and 
deemed  his  sermons  out-of-date.  He  was  in- 
clined, too,  to  insist  upon  a  stricter  observance 
of  the  law  than  suited  their  lax  American  ideas. 
So  he,  too,  famous  in  Russia,  rapidly  became 
one  of  the  "  submerged." 

One  of  the  most  learned,  dignified  and  impres- 
sive rabbis  of  the  east  side  is  Rabbi  Vidrovitch. 
He  was  a  rabbi  for  forty  years  in  Russia,  and  for 
nine  years  in  New  York.  Like  all  true  rabbis  he 
does  not  preach,  but  merely  sits  in  his  home  and 
expounds  the  *Maw."  He  employs  the  Socratic 
method  of  instruction,  and  is  very  keen  in  his 
indirect  mode  of  argument.  Keenness,  indeed, 
seems  to  be  the  general  result  of  the  hair-split- 
ting Rabbinical  education.    The  uptown  rabbis, 

preachers,"  as  the  down-town  rabbi  contemp- 
tuously calls  them,  send  many  letters  to  Rabbi 
Vidrovitch  seeking  his  help  in  the  untying  of 
knotty  points  of  the  'Maw."  It  was  from  him 
that  Israel  Zangwill,  when  the  Children  of  the 

68 


Ghetto  was  produced  on  the  New  York  stage, 
obtained  a  minute  description  of  the  orthodox 
marriage  ceremonies.  Zangwill  caused  to  be 
taken  several  flash-light  photographs  of  the  old 
rabbi,  surrounded  by  his  books  and  dressed  in 
his  official  garments. 

There  are  many  congregations  in  the  New 
York  Ghetto  which  have  no  rabbis  and  many 
rabbis  who  have  no  congregations.  Two  rabbis 
who  have  no  congregations  are  Rabbi  Beinush 
and  Rabbi,  or  rather,  Cantor,  Weiss.  Rabbi 
Weiss  would  say  of  Beinush  that  he  is  a  man 
who  knows  the  Talmud,  but  has  no  diploma. 
Rabbi  Beinush  is  an  extremely  poor  rabbi  with 
neither  congregation  nor  slaughter-houses,  who 
sits  in  his  poor  room  and  occasionally  sells  his 
wisdom  to  a  fishwife  who  wants  to  know  if  some 
piece  of  meat  is  koshur  or  not.  He  is  down  on 
the  rich  up-town  rabbis,  who  care  nothing  for 
the  law,  as  he  puts  it,  and  who  leave  the  poor 
down-town  rabbi  to  starve. 

Cantor  Weiss  is  also  without  a  job.  The  duty 
of  the  cantor  is  to  sing  the  prayer  in  the  congre- 
gation, but  Cantor  Weiss  sings  only  on  holidays, 
for  he  is  not  paid  enough,  he  says,  to  work  regu- 
larly, the  cantor  sharing  in  this  country  a  fate 
similar  to  that  of  the  rabbi.  The  famous  come- 
dian of  the  Ghetto,  Mogolesco,  was,  as  a  boy, 

69 


one  of  the  most  noted  cantors  in  Russia.  As  an 
actor  in  the  New  York  Ghetto  he  makes  twenty 
times  as  much  money  as  the  most  accompHshed 
cantor  here.  Cantor  Weiss  is  very  bitter 
against  the  up-town  cantors :  They  shorten 
the  prayer,"  he  said.  They  are  not  orthodox. 
It  is  too  hot  in  the  synagogue  for  the  comfortable 
up-town  cantors  to  pray." 

Comfortable  Philistinism,  progress  and  en- 
lightment  up  town  ;  and  poverty,  orthodoxy  and 
patriotic  and  religious  sentiment,  with  a  touch 
of  the  material  also,  down  town.  Such  seems 
to  be  the  difference  between  the  German  and 
the  Russian  Jew  in  this  country,  and  in  particu- 
lar between  the  German  and  Russian  Jewish 
rabbi. 


70 


Chapter  Three 


C|)e  0Vti  anti  jBteto  ^omau 

The  women  present  in  many  respects  a  marked 
contrast  to  their  American  sisters.  Substance  as 
opposed  to  form,  simplicity  of  mood  as  opposed 
to  capriciousness,  seem  to  be  in  broad  lines  their 
relative  qualities.  They  have  comparatively  few 
etats  d'ame;  but  those  few  are  revealed  with 
directness  and  passion.  They  lack  the  subtle 
charm  of  the  American  woman,  who  is  full  of 
feminine  devices,  complicated  flirtatiousness ; 
who  in  her  dress  and  personal  appearance  seeks 
the  plastic  epigram,  and  in  her  talk  and  relation 
to  the  world  an  indirect  suggestive  delicacy. 
They  are  poor  in  physical  estate  ;  many  work  or 
have  worked;  even  the  comparatively  educated 
among  them,  in  the  sweat-shops,  are  undernour- 
ished and  lack  the  physical  well-being  and  con- 
sequent temperamental  buoyancy  which  are 
comforting  qualities  of  the  well-bred  American 
woman.  Unhappy  in  circumstances,  they  are 
predominatingly  serious  in  nature,  and,  if  they 
lack  alertness  to  the  social  nuance,  have  yet  a 
compelling  appeal  which  consists  in  headlong 

71 


devotion  to  a  duty,  a  principle  or  a  person.  As 
their  men  do  not  treat  them  with  the  scrupulous 
deference  given  their  American  sisters,  they  do 
not  so  delightfully  abound  in  their  own  sense,  do 
not  so  complexedly  work  out  their  own  natures, 
and  lack  variety  and  grace.  On  the  other  hand, 
they  are  more  apt  to  abound  in  the  sense  of 
something  outside  of  themselves,  and  carry  to 
their  love  affairs  the  same  devoted  warmth  that 
they  put  into  principle. 

THE  ORTHODOX  JEWESS 

The  first  of  the  two  well-marked  classes  of 
women  in  the  Ghetto  is  that  of  the  ignorant  or- 
thodox Russian  Jewess.  She  has  no  language 
but  Yiddish,  no  learning  but  the  Talmudic  law,  no 
practical  authority  but  that  of  her  husband  and 
her  rabbi.  She  is  even  more  of  a  Hausfrau  than 
the  German  wife.  She  can  own  no  property,  and 
the  precepts  of  the  Talmud  as  applied  to  her 
conduct  are  largely  limited  to  the  relations  with 
her  husband.  Her  life  is  absorbed  in  observing 
the  religious  law  and  in  taking  care  of  her 
numerous  children.  She  is  .drab  and  plain  in 
appearance,  with  a  thick  waist,  a  wig,  and  as  far 
as  is  possible  for  a  woman  a  contempt  for  orna- 
ment. She  is,  however,  with  the  noticeable 
assimilative  sensitiveness  of  the  Jew,  beginning 

72 


to  pick  up  some  of  the  ways  of  the  American 
woman.  If  she  is  young  when  she  comes  to 
America,  she  soon  lays  aside  her  wig,  and 
sometimes  assumes  the  rakish  American  hat, 
prides  herself  on  her  bad  English,  and  grows 


HER  LIFE  IS  ABSORBED  IN  OBSERVING  THE 
RELIGIOUS  LAW 

slack  in  the  observance  of  Jewish  holidays  and 
the  dietary  regulations  of  the  Talmud.  Altho 
it  is  against  the  law  of  this  religion  to  go  to  the 
theatre,  large  audiences,  mainly  drawn  from  the 

73 


ignorant  workers  of  the  sweat-shops  and  the 
fishwives  and  pedlers  of  the  push-cart  markets, 
flock  to  the  Bowery  houses.  It  is  this  class 
which  forms  the  large  background  of  the  com- 
munity, the  masses  from  which  more  cultivated 
types  are  developing. 

Many  a  literary  sketch  in  the  newspapers  of 
the  quarter  portrays  these  ignorant,  simple, 
devout,  housewifely  creatures  in  comic  or  pa- 
thetic, more  often,  after  the  satiric  manner  of 
the  Jewish  writers,  in  serio-comic  vein.  The 
authors,  altho  they  are  much  more  educated,  yet 
write  of  these  women,  even  when  they  write  in 
comic  fashion,  with  fundamental  sympathy. 
They  picture  them  working  devotedly  in  the 
shop  or  at  home  for  their  husbands  and  families, 
they  represent  the  sorrow  and  simple  jealousy  of 
the  wife  whose  husband's  imagination,  perhaps, 
is  carried  away  by  the  piquant  manner  and  dress 
of  a  Jewess  who  is  beginning  to  ape  American 
ways ;  they  tell  of  the  comic  adventures  in 
America  of  the  newly-arrived  Jewess :  how  she 
goes  to  the  theatre,  perhaps,  and  enacts  the 
part  of  Partridge  at  the  play.  More  fundamen- 
tally, they  relate  how  the  poor  woman  is  deeply 
shocked,  at  her  arrival,  by  the  change  which  a 
few  years  have  made  in  the  character  of  her 
husband,  who  had  come  to  America  before  her 

74 


in  order  to  make  a  fortune.  She  finds  his  beard 
shaved  off,  and  his  manners  in  regard  to  reUg- 
ious  holidays  very  slack.  She  is  sometimes  so 
deeply  affected  that  she  does  not  recover.  More 
often  she  grows  to  feel  the  reason  and  eloquence 
of  the  change  and  becomes  partly  accustomed 
to  the  situation  ;  but  all  through  her  life  she 
continues  to  be  dismayed  by  the  precocity,  irre- 
ligion  and  Americanism  of  her  children.  Many 
sketches  and  many  scenes  in  the  Ghetto  plays 
present  her  as  a  pathetic  ^'greenhorn"  who, 
while  she  is  loved  by  her  children,  is  yet  rather 
patronized  and  pitied  by  them. 

In  '*Gott,  Mensch  und  Teufel,"  a  Yiddish 
adaptation  of  the  Faust  idea,  one  of  these  sim- 
ple religious  souls  is  dramatically  portrayed. 
The  restless  Jewish  Faust,  his  soul  corrupted 
by  the  love  of  money,  puts  aside  his  faithful  wife 
in  order  to  marry  another  woman  who  has 
pleased  his  eye.  He  uses  as  an  excuse  the  fact 
that  his  marriage  is  childless,  and  as  such  ren- 
dered void  in  accordance  with  the  precepts  of 
the  religious  law.  His  poor  old  wife  submits 
almost  with  reverence  to  the  double  authority 
of  husband  and  Talmud,  and  with  humble  de- 
meanor and  tears  streaming  from  her  eyes  begs 
the  privilege  of  taking  care  of  the  children  of 
her  successor. 

75 


i 


In  "The  Slaughter"  there  is  a  scene  which 
picturesquely  portrays  the  love  of  the  poor  Jew 
and  the  poor  Jewess  for  their  children.  The 
wife  is  married  to  a  brute,  whom  she  hates,  and 
between  the  members  of  the  two  families  there 
is  no  relation  but  that  of  ugly  sordidness.  But 
when  it  is  known  that  a  child  is  to  be  born  they 
are  all  filled  with  the  greatest  joy.  The  husband 
is  ecstatic  and  they  have  a  great  feast,  drink, 
sing  and  dance,  and  the  young  wife  is  lyrically 
happy  for  the  first  time  since  her  marriage. 

Many  little  newspaper  sketches  portray  the 
simple  sweat-shop  Jewess  of  the  ordinary  affec- 
tionate type,  who  is  exclusively  minded  so  far  as 
her  husband's  growing  interest  in  the  showy 
American  Jewess  is  concerned.  Cahan's  novel, 
**Yekel,"  is  the  Ghetto  masterpiece  in  the  por- 
trayal of  these  two  types  of  women — the  wronged 
*'greenhorn"  who  has  just  come  from  Russia, 
and  she  who,  with  a  rakish  hat  and  bad  English, 
is  becoming  an  American  girl  with  strange 
power  to  alienate  the  husband's  affections. 

THE  MODERN  TYPE 

The  other,  the  educated  class  of  Ghetto  wo- 
men, is,  of  course,  in  a  great  minority;  and  this 
division  includes  the  women  even  the  most 
slightly  affected  by  modern  ideas  as  well  as 

76 


those  who  from  an  intellectual  point  of  view  are 
highly  cultivated.  Among  the  least  educated 
are  a  large  number  of  women  who  would  be 
entirely  ignorant  were  it  not  for  the  ideas  which 
they  have  received  through  the  Socialistic  prop- 
aganda of  the  quarter.  Like  the  men  who  are 
otherwise  ignorant,  they  are  trained  to  a  certain 
familiarity  with  economic  ideas,  read  and  think 
a  good  deal  about  labor  and  capital,  and  take  an 
active  part  in  speaking,  in  ''house  to  house" 
distribution  of  socialistic  literature  and  in  strike 
agitation.  Many  of  these  women,  so  long  as 
they  are  unmarried,  lead  lives  thoroughly  de- 
voted to  ''the  cause,"  and  afterwards  become 
good  wives  and  fruitful  mothers,  and  urge  on 
their  husbands  and  sons  to  active  work  in  the 
"movement."  They  have  in  personal  character 
many  virtues  called  masculine,  are  simple  and 
straightforward  and  intensely  serious,  and  do 
not  "bank"  in  any  way  on  the  fact  that  they 
are  women !  Such  a  woman  would  feel  insulted 
if  her  escort  were  to  pick  up  her  handkerchief  or 
in  any  way  suggest  a  politeness  growing  out  of 
the  difference  in  sex.  It  is  from  this  class  of 
women,  from  those  who  are  merely  tinged,  so  to 
speak,  with  ideas,  and  who  consequently  are  apt 
to  throw  the  whole  strength  of  their  primitive 
natures  into  the  narrow  intellectual  channels 

77 


that  are  open  to  them,  that  a  number  of  Ghetto 
heroines  come  who  are  wiUing  to  lay  down  their 
lives  for  an  idea,  or  to  live  for  one.  It  was  only 
recently  that  the  thinking  Socialists  were  stirred 
by  the  suicide  of  a  young  girl  for  which  several 
causes  were  given.  Some  say  it  was  for  love,  but 
what  seems  a  partial  cause  at  least  for  the  trag- 
edy was  the  girl's  devotion  to  anarchistic  ideas. 
She  had  worked  for  some  time  in  the  quarter 
and  was  filled  with  enthusiastic  Tolstoian 
convictions  about  freedom  and  non-resistance 
to  evil,  and  all  the  other  idealistic  doctrines  for 
which  these  Anarchists  are  remark- 
able. Some  of  the  people  of  the  quarter 
believe  that  it  was  temporary  despair 
of  any  satisfactory  outcome  to  her  work 
that  brought  about  her  death.  But 
since  the  splits  in  the  Socialistic  party 
and  the  rise  among  them  of  many  in- 
sincere agitators,  the  enthusiasm  for 
the  cause  has  diminished,  and  par- 
ticularly among  the  women,  who 
demand  perfect  integrity  or  noth- 
ing; tho  there  is  still  a  large  class 
of  poor  sweat-shop  women  who 
carry  on  active  propaganda 
work,  make  speeches,  distrib- 
ute literature,  and  go  from 
78 


INTENSELY  SERIOUS 


house  to  house  in  a  social  effort  to  make  converts. 

As  we  ascend  in  the  scale  of  education  in  the 
Ghetto  we  find  women  who  derive  their  culture 
and  ideas  from  a  double  source — from  Social- 
ism and  from  advanced  Russian  ideals  of  litera- 
ture and  life.  They  have  lost  faith  completely  in 
the  orthodox  religion,  have  substituted  no  other, 
know  Russian  better  than  Yiddish,  read  Tol- 
stoi, Turgenef  and  Chekhov,  and  often  put  into 
practice  the  most  radical  theories  of  the  *'new 
woman,"  particularly  those  which  say  that  wo- 
man should  be  economically  independent  of 
man.  There  are  successful  female  dentists, 
physicians,  writers,  and  even  lawyers  by  the 
score  in  East  Broadway  who  have  attained 
financial  independence  through  industry  and 
intelligence.  They  are  ambitious  to  a  degree 
and  often  direct  the  careers  of  their  husbands  or 
force  their  lovers  to  become  doctors  or  lawyers 
— the  great  social  desiderata  in  the  match- 
making of  the  Ghetto.  There  is  more  than  one 
case  on  record  where  a  girl  has  compelled  her 
recalcitrant  lover  to  learn  law,  medicine  or  den- 
tistry, or  submit  to  being  jilted  by  her.  An 
actor  devoted  to  the  stage  is  now  on  the  point 
of  leaving  it  to  become  a  dentist  at  the  com- 
mand of  his  ambitious  wife.  always  do  what 
she  tells  me,"  he  said  pathetically. 

79 


The  career  of  a  certain  woman  now  practising 
dentistry  in  the  Ghetto  is  one  of  the  most  inter- 
esting cases,  and  is  also  quite  typical.  She  was 
born  of  poor  Jewish  parents  in  a  town  near  St. 
Petersburg,  and  began  early  to  read  the  socialist 
propaganda  and  the  Russian  literature  which 
contains  so  much  implicit  revolutionary  doctrine. 
When  she  was  seventeen  years  old  she  wrote 
a  novel  in  Yiddish,  called  Mrs.  Goldna,  the 
Usurer,"  in  which  she  covertly  advocated  the 
anarchistic  teachings.  The  title  and  the  sub- 
theme  of  the  book  was  directed  against  the 
usurer  class  among  the  Jews,  and  were  mainly 
intended  to  hide  from  the  Government  her  real 
purpose.  The  book  was  afterwards  published  in 
New  York,  and  had  a  fairly  wide  circulation.  A 
year  or  two  later  her  imagination  was  irresisti- 
bly enthralled  by  the  remarkable  wave  of  **new 
woman  "  enthusiasm  which  swept  over  Russia 
in  the  early  eighties,  and  resulted  in  so  many 
suicides  of  young  girls  whom  poverty  or  injustice 
to  the  Jew  thwarted  in  their  scientific  and  intel- 
lectual ambition.  She  went  alone  to  St.  Peters- 
burg with  sixty  five  cents  in  her  pocket,  in  order 
to  obtain  a  professional  education,  which,  after 
years  of  practical  starvation,  she  succeeded  in 
securing.  With  several  degrees  she  came  to 
America  twelve  years  ago  and  fought  out  an 

80 


independent  professional  posi- 
tion for  herself.  She  believes 
that  all  women  should  have  the 
means  by  which  they  may  sup- 
port themselves,  and  that  mar- 
riage under  these  conditions 
would  be  happier  than  at  pres-  3 
ent.  Her  husband  is  a  doctor, 
and  her  idea  is  that  they  are  |?; 
happier  than  if  she  were  a  woman 
of  the  old  type,  "merely  a  wife 
and  mother,"  as  she  put  it.  She 
maintains  that  no  emotional  in- 
terest is  lost  under  the  new 
regime,  while  many  practical  ad- 
vantages are  gained.  Since  she 
has  been  in  America  she  has^^ 
furthered  the  Socialist  cause  by 
literary  sketches  published  in  the  Yiddish  news- 
papers, altho  she  has  been  too  busy  to  take  any 
direct  part  in  the  movement. 

The  description  of  this  type  of  woman  seems 
rather  cold  and  forbidding  in  the  telling  ;  but 
such  an  impression  is  misleading.  There  is  no 
commoner  reproach  made  by  the  women  of  the 
Ghetto  against  their  American  sister  than  that 
she  is  unemotional  and  "practical."  They 
come  to  America,  like  the  men,  because  they 

81 


A  RUSSIAN 
GIRL-STUDENT 


cannot  stand  the  political  conditions  in  Russia, 
which  they  describe  as  fierce,"  but  they  never 
cease  loving  the  land  of  their  birth ;  and  the 
reason  they  give  is  that  the  ideal  still  lives  in 
Muscovite  civilization,  while  in  America  it  is 
trampled  out  by  the  cult  of  the  dollar.  They 
think  Americans  are  dry  and  cold,  unpoetic,  un- 
interested in  great  principles,  and  essentially 
frivolous,  incapable  of  devotion  to  persons  or  to 
"movements,"  reading  books  only  for  amuse- 
ment, and  caring  nothing  for  real  literature. 
One  day  an  American  dined  with  four  Russian 
Jews  of  distinction.  Two  were  Nihilists  who 
had  been  in  the  ^'big  movement "  in  Russia  and 
were  merely  visiting  New  York.  The  other  two 
were  a  married  couple  of  uncommon  education. 
The  Nihilists  were  gentle,  cultivated  men,  with 
feeling  for  literature,  and  deeply  admired,  be- 
cause of  their  connection  with  the  great  move- 
ment, by  the  two  New  Yorkers.  The  talk 
turned  on  Byron,  for  whom  the  Russians  had  a 
warm  enthusiasm.  The  Americans  made  rather 
light  of  Byron  and  incurred  thereby  the  great 
scorn  of  the  Russians,  who  felt  deeply  the 
"  tendency  "  character  of  the  poet  without  being 
able  to  understand  his  aesthetic  and  imaginative 
limitations.  After  the  Nihilists  had  left,  the  mis- 
guided American  used  the  words  "interesting" 

82 


and  ''amusing  "  in  connection  with  them ;  where- 
upon the  Russian  lady  was  almost  indignant, 
and  dilated  on  the  frivolity  of  a  race  that  could 
not  take  serious  people  seriously,  but  wanted 
always  to  be  entertained ;  that  cared  only  for 
what  was  "pretty"  and  ''charming"  and  "sen- 
sible" and  "practical,"  and  cared  nothing  for 
poetry  and  beauty  and  essential  humanity. 

The  woman  referred  to,  as  well  as  many  others 
of  the  most  educated  class  in  the  quarter,  some 
of  them  the  wives  of  socialists,  doctors,  lawyers  or 
literary  men,  are  strongly  interesting  because 
of  their  warm  temperaments,  and  genuine,  if 
limited,  ideas  about  art,  but  most  of  them  are 
lacking  in  grace,  and  sense  of  humor,  and  of  pro- 
portion. They  are  stiff  and  unyielding,  have  little 
free  play  of  imagination,  little  alertness  of  ideas, 
and  their  sense  of  literature  is  limited  largely  to 
realism.  Japanese  art,  for  instance,  as  any  art 
which  depends  on  the  exquisiteness  of  its  form, 
is  lost  on  these  stern  realists.  They  no  more 
understand  the  latest  subtle  literary  conscious- 
ness than  they  do  the  interest  and  eloquence  of 
a  creature  who  makes  of  herself  a  perfect  social 
product  such  as  the  clever  French  woman  of 
history. 

But  the  charm  of  sincere  feeling  they  have  ; 
and,  in  an  intellectual  race,  that  feeling  shapes 

83 


itself  into  definite  criticism  of  society.  Emotion- 
ally strong  and  attached  by  Russian  tradition  to 
a  rebellious  doctrine,  they  are  deeply  unconven- 
tional in  theory  and  sometimes  in  practice  ;  altho 
the  national  morality  of  the  Jewish  race  very 
definitely  limits  the  extent  to  which  they  realize 
some  of  their  ideas.  The  passionate  feeling  at 
the  bottom  of  most  of  their  '^tendency  "  beliefs  is 
that  woman  should  stand  on  the  same  social 
basis  as  man,  and  should  be  weighed  in  the 
same  scales.  This  ruling  creed  is  held  by  all 
classes  of  the  educated  women  of  the  Ghetto,, 
from  the  poor  sweat  shop  worker,  who  has 
recently  felt  the  influence  of  Socialism,  to  the 
thoroughly  trained  new  woman  "  with  her  de- 
veloped literary  taste  ;  and  all  its  variations  find 
expression  in  the  literature  of  the  quarter. 

PLACE  OF  WOMAN  IN  GHETTO 
LITERATURE 

Ibsen's  Doll's  House"  has  been  translated 
and  produced  at  a  Yiddish  theatre ;  and  an 
original  play  called  "Minna  "  registers  a  protest 
by  the  Jewish  woman  against  that  law  of  mar- 
riage which  binds  her  to  an  inferior  man.  Mar- 
ried to  an  ignorant  laborer,  Minna  falls  in  love  (for 
his  advanced  ideas)  with  the  boarder — every  poor 
family,  to  pay  the  rent,  must  saddle  themselves 

85 


with  a  boarder,  often  at  the  expense  of  domestic 
happiness — and  finally  kills  herself,  when  the 
laws  of  society  press  her  too  hard.  Another 
drama  called  "  East  Broadway "  presents  the 
case  of  a  Russian  Jewess  devoted  to  Russia,  to 
idealism  and  Nihilism,  and  to  a  man  who  shared 
her  faith  until  they  came  to  New  York,  when  he 
became  a  business  man  pure  and  simple,  and 
lost  his  ideals  and  his  love  for  her.  In  a  popular 
play  called  "The  Beggar  of  Odessa,"  lines 
openly  advocating  the  freest  love  between  the 
sexes  accompany  other  extreme  anarchistic 
views  put  into  the  loosest  and  most  popular 
form.  "  Broken  Chains  "  is  a  drama  which  criti- 
cises the  relative  freedom  of  action  given  to  the 
man  in  matters  of  love.  The  heroine  reads 
Ibsen  at  night  while  her  husband  amuses  himself 
in  the  quarter.  A  young  bookkeeper  is  there 
who  serves  to  make  concrete  her  growing  theo- 
ries. But  her  sense  of  duty  to  her  child  restrains 
her  from  the  final  step,  and  she  dies  in  despair. 
Suicides  in  sketches  and  plays  abound,  and  as 
often  as  not  result  simply  from  intellectual  de- 
spondency. "Vain  Sacrifice  "  is  the  fierce  outcry 
of  a  woman  against  the  poverty  which  makes  her 
marry  a  man  she  loathes  for  the  sake  of  her 
father.  In  the  newspaper  sketches  there  are 
many  pictures  of  sordid  homes  and  conditions 

86 


from  the  midst  of  which  fierce  protests  by  wives 
and  mothers  are  implicitly  given. 

An  appealing  characteristic  of  the  "new 
woman "  of  the  Ghetto  is  the  consideration 
which  she  manifests  towards  the  orthodox 
"greenhorn"  who  may  be  her  aunt,  her  mother, 
her  mother-in-law  or  her  grandmother.  The 
sense  of  infinite  form  prescribed  by  the  Talmud 
is  dead  to  her,  but  extraordinary  love  for  the 
family  bond  is  not,  and,  moved  by  that,  she  ob- 
serves the  complicated  formulae  on  all  the  holi- 
days in  order  to  please  the  dear  old  "greenhorn  " 
who  lives  with  her;  eats  unleavened  bread, 
weeps  on  Atonement  Day  in  the  synagogue,  and 
goes  through  the  whole  long  list.  Her  conduct 
in  this  respect  is  in  striking  contrast  to  the 
off-hand  treatment  of  parents  by  their  American 
daughters,  and  to  that  of  the  Orthodox  Jewish 
woman  in  relation  to  the  theatre.  The  law  for- 
bids the  theatre,  but  even  the  slightly  disil- 
lusioned ladies  of  the  quarter  will  go  on  the 
Sabbath ;  and  it  is  said  that  they  sometimes 
hypocritically  relieve  their  consciences  by  hissing 
the  actor  who,  even  in  his  role,  dares  to  smoke 
on  that  day.  This  is  on  a  par  with  the  hypocrisy 
which  leads  many  Orthodox  Jewish  families  to 
have  a  Gentile  as  their  servant,  so  that  they 
can  drink  the  tea,  and  warm  themselves  by 

87 


the  fire,  made  by  him,  without  tech- 
nically violating  "the  law." 

Love  in  the  Ghetto  is,  no  doubt,  very 
much  the  same  as  it  is  elsewhere ;  and 
this  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  among  the 
Orthodox  marriage  is  arranged  by  the 
parents,  a  custom  which  is  con- 
demned in  *'The  Slaughter,"  for 
instance,  where  the  terrible 
results  of  a  loveless  union  are 
portrayed.  The  system  of 
matrimonial  agents  in  the 
quarter  does  not  seem  to  have 
any  important  bearing  on  the 
question  of  love.  In  this  re- 
spect the  free  thinking  of  the 
people  grows  apace,  and  love- 
marriages  in  the  quarter  are 
A  RUSSIAN  TYPE  ou  the  iucrease.  In  matters 
of  taste  and  inclination  between  the  sexes, 
however,  there  are  some  qualities  quite  start- 
ling LO  the  American.  The  most  popular  actor 
with  the  girls  of  the  Ghetto  is  a  very  fat,  heavy, 
pompous  hero  who  would  provoke  only  a  smile 
from  the  trim  American  girl ;  and  the  more 
popular  actresses  are  also  very  stout  ladies. 
From  an  American  point  of  view  the  prettiest 
actresses  of  the  Ghetto  are  admired  by  the 

88 


minority  of  Jews  who  have  been  taken  by  the 
rakish  hat,  the  slim  form,  and  the  indefinite 
charm  to  which  the  Ghetto  is  being  educated. 
It  is  alleged  that  at  an  up-town  theatre,  where  a 
large  proportion  of  the  audience  is  Jewish,  the 
leading  lady  must  always  be  of  very  generous 
build  ;  and  this  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  well- 
to-do  Jews  up-town  have  been  in  America  a  long 
time,  and  have  had  ample  opportunity  to  become 
smitten  with  the  charms  of  the  slender  Ameri- 
can girl. 


89 


Chapter  Four 


In  East  Canal  Street,  in  the  heart  of  the  east 
side,  are  many  of  the  little  Russian  Jewish  cafes, 
already  mentioned,  where  excellent  coffee  and 
tea  are  sold,  where  everything  is  clean  and 
good,  and  where  the  conversation  is  often  of  the 
best.  The  talk  is  good,  for  there  assemble,  in 
the  late  afternoon  and  evening,  the  chosen 
crowd  of  ''intellectuals."  The  best  that  is 
Russian  to-day  is  intensely  serious.  What  is 
distinctively  Jewish  has  always  been  serious. 
The  man  hunted  from  his  country  is  apt  to  have 
a  serious  tone  in  thought  and  feeling. 

It  is  this  combination — Russian,  Jewish,  and 
exile — that  is  represented  at  these  little  Canal 
Street  cafes.  The  sombre  and  earnest  qualities 
of  the  race,  emphasized  by  the  special  condi- 
tions, receive  here  expression  in  the  mouths  of 
actors,  socialists,  musicians,  journalists,  and 
poets.  Here  they  get  together  and  talk  by  the 
hour,  over  their  coffee  and  cake,  about  politics 
and  society,  poetry  and  ethics,  literature  and 
life.    The  cafe-keepers  themselves  are  thought- 

90 


ful  and  often  join  in  the  discussion, — a  discussion 
never  light  but  sometimes  lighted  up  by  bitter 
wit  and  gloomy  irony. 

There  are  many  poets  among  them,  four  of 
whom  stand  out  as  men  of  great  talent.  One  of 
the  four,  Morris  Rosenfeld,  is  already  well  known 
to  the  English-speaking  world  through  a  trans- 
lation of  some  of  his  poems.  Two  of  the  other 
three  are  equally  well  known,  but  only  to  the 
Jewish  people.  One  is  famous  throughout  Jew- 
ish Russia. 

A  WEDDING  BARD 

The  oldest  of  the  four  poets  is  Eliakim  Zunser. 
It  is  he  that  is  known  to  millions  of  people  in 
Russia  and  to  the  whole  New  York  Ghetto.  He 
is  the  poet  of  the  common  people,  the  beloved  of 
all,  the  poet  of  the  housewife,  of  the  Jew  who  is 
so  ignorant  that  he  does  not  even  know  his  own 
family  name.  To  still  more  ignorant  people,  if 
such  are  possible,  he  is  known  by  what,  after  all, 
is  his  distinctive  title,  Eliakim  the  Badchen,  or 
the  Wedding  Bard.  He  writes  in  Yiddish,  the 
universal  language  of  the  Jew,  dubbed  '^jargon'* 
by  the  Hebrew  aristocrat. 

Zunser  is  now  a  printer  in  Rutger's  Square,  and 
has  largely  given  up  his  duties  as  Badchen,  but  at 
one  time  he  was  so  famous  in  that  capacity  that 

9^ 


he  went  to  a  wedding  once  or  twice  every  day, 
and  made  in  that  way  a  large  income.  His  part 
at  the  ceremony  was  to  address  the  bride  and 
bridegroom  in  verse  so  solemn  that  it  would 
bring  tears  to  their  eyes,  and  then  entertain  the 
guests  with  burlesque  lines.  He  composed  the 
music  as  well  as  the  verses,  and  did  both  extem- 
pore. When  he  left  his  home  to  attend  the 
wedding  there  was  no  idea  in  his  head  as  to 
what  he  would  say.  He  left  that  to  the  result  of 
a  hurried  talk  before  the  ceremony  with  the 
wedding  guests  and  the  relatives  of  the  couple. 

Zunser's  wedding  verses  died  as  soon  as  they 
were  born,  but  there  are  sixty-five  collections  of 

his  poems,  hundreds  of  which  are 
sung  every  day  to  young  and  old 
throughout  Russia.  Many  others 
have  never  been  published,  for 
Zunser  is  a  poet  who  composes 
as  he  breathes,  whose  every  feel- 
ing and  idea  quivers  into  poetic 


111 


1} 


expression,  and  who  preserves 
only  an  accidental  part  of  what 
he  does. 

He  is  a  man  of  about  seventy 
years  of  age,  with  kind  little  eyes, 
a  gray  beard,  and  spare,  short 
figure.    As  he  sits  in  his  printing 
92 


/ 

ELIAKIM  ZUNSER 


office  in  the  far  east  side  he  wears  a  small  black 
cap  on  his  head.  Adjoining  the  office  is  another 
room,  in  which  he  lives  with  nis  wife  and  several 
children.  The  stove,  the  dining-table,  the  beds, 
are  all  in  the  same  room,  which  is  bare  and  chill. 
But  the  poet  is  hospitable,  and  to  the  guests  he 
offered  cake  and  a  bottle  of  sarsaparilla.  Far 
more  delightful,  however,  the  old  man  read  some 
of  his  poems  aloud.  As  he  read  in  a  chanting 
tone  he  swayed  gently  backwards  and  forwards, 
unconscious  of  his  visitors,  absorbed  in  the 
rhythm  and  feeling  of  the  song.  There  was 
great  sweetness  and  tenderness  in  his  eyes, 
facility  and  spontaneity  in  the  metre,  and  simple 
pathos  and  philosophy  in  the  meaning  of  what 
he  said.  He  was  apparently  not  conscious  of 
the  possession  of  unusual  power.  Famous  as 
he  is,  there  was  no  sense  of  it  in  his  bearing. 
He  is  absolutely  of  the  people,  childlike  and 
simple.  So  far  removed  is  he  from  the  pride  of. 
his  distinction  that  he  has  largely  given  up 
poetry  now. 

don't  write  much  any  more,"  he  said  in  his 
careless  Yiddish;       have  not  much  time." 

His  poetry  seemed  to  him  only  a  detail  of  his 
life.  Along  with  the  simplicity  of  old  age  he 
has  the  maturity  and  aloofness  of  it.  The  feel- 
ing for  his  position  as  an  individual,  if  he  ever 

93 


had  it,  has  gone,  and  left  the  mind  and  heart 
interested  only  in  God,  race,  and  impersonal 
beauty. 

So  as  he  chanted  his  poems  he  seemed  to 
gather  up  into  himself  the  dignity  and  pathos  of 
his  serious  and  suffering  race,  but  as  one  who 
had  gone  beyond  the  suffering  and  lived  only 
with  the  eternities.  His  wife  and  children  bent 
over  him  as  he  recited,  and  their  bodies  kept 
time  with  his  rhythm.  One  of  the  two  visitors 
was  a  Jew,  whose  childhood  had  been  spent  in 
Russia,  and  when  Zunser  read  a  dirge  which  he 
had  composed  in  Russia  twenty-five  years  ago 
at  the  death  by  cholera  of  his  first  wife  and  chil- 
dren— a  dirge  which  is  now  chanted  daily  in 
thousands  of  Jewish  homes  in  Russia — the 
visitor  joined  in,  altho  he  had  not  heard  it  for 
many  years.  Tears  came  to  his  eyes  as  mem- 
ories of  his  childhood  were  brought  up  by  Zun- 
ser's  famous  lines ;  his  body  swayed  to  and  fro  in 
sympathy  with  that  of  Zunser  and  those  of  the 
poet's  second  wife  and  her  children ;  and  to  the 
Anglo-Saxon  present  this  little  group  of  Jewish 
exiles  moved  by  rhythm,  pathos,  and  the  memory 
of  a  far-away  land  conveyed  a  strange  emotion. 

Zunser's  dirge  is  in  a  vein  of  reflective  melan- 
choly. ^'The  Mail  Wagon"  is  its  title.  The 
mail  wagon  brings  joy  and  sorrow,  hope  and 

94 


despair,  and  it  was  this  awful  mechanism  that 
brought  Zunser's  grief  home  to  him.  But 
earth,  too,  is  a  machine,  a  machine  that  crushes 
the  bones  of  the  philosopher  into  dust,  digests 
them,  that  crushes  and  digests  all  things.  From 
it  all  comes.  Into  it  all  goes.  Why  may  I  not 
therefore  be  chewing  at  this  moment  the  mar- 
row of  my  children  ?  " 

Another  song  the  old  man  read  aloud  was 
composed  in  his  early  childhood,  and  is  repre- 
sentative in  subject  and  mood  of  much  of  his 
later  work.  *^The  Song  of  the  Bird"  it  is 
called,  and  it  typifies  the  Jewish  race.  The 
bird's  wing  is  broken,  and  the  bird  reflects  in 
tender  melancholy  over  his  misfortunes.  ''Take 
me  away  from  Roumania  "  has  the  same  melan- 
choly, but  also  a  humorous  pathos  in  the  title, 
for  the  poet  meant  he  would  like  to  be  taken 
away  from  Russia,  but  was  afraid  to  say  so  for 
political  reasons.  But  the  sadness  of  Zunser's 
poetry  is  lightened  by  its  spontaneity  and  by  the 
felicity  of  verse  and  music,  and  the  naive  idea  in 
each  poem  is  never  too  solemnly  insisted  upon 
for  popular  poetry. 

The  dirge,  which  touched  upon  an  episode  of 
his  life,  led  the  poet  to  tell  in  his  simple  way  the 
other  events  of  a  life  history  at  once  typical  and 
peculiar. 

95 


He  was  born  in  Vilna,  the  capital  of  ancient 
Lithuania,  and  became  apprentice  to  a  weaver  of 
gold  lace  at  the  age  of  six.  His  general  educa- 
tion was  consequently  slight,  tho  he  picked  up  a 
little  of  the  Talmud  and  sang  Isaiah  and  Jere- 
miah while  at  work.  At  the  end  of  six  years, 
when  he  was  supposed  to  know  his  trade,  his 
master  was  to  give  him  twenty  roubles  as  total 
wage.  But  the  master  refused  to  pay,  and  young 
Zunser  took  to  the  road  with  no  money.  He 
went  to  Bysk  in  the  Ostsee  province,  and  there 
worked  at  his  trade  during  the  day  and  at  night 
studied  the  Talmud  under  the  local  rabbi.  He 
also  began  to  read  books  in  pure  Hebrew  for  the 
love  of  the  noble  poetry  in  that  tongue.  Before 
long  he  received  word  from  home  that  his  little 
brother  had  died.  He  went  back  and  helped  his 
mother  cry,  as  he  expressed  it.  Away  he  went 
again  from  home  to  a  place  called  Bobroysk, 
where  he  obtained  a  position  to  teach  Hebrew 
in  the  family  of  an  innkeeper,  who  promised  to 
pay  him  twenty-five  roubles  at  the  end  of  six 
months.  When  the  time  came  his  employer 
said  he  would  pay  at  the  end  of  the  year.  In- 
genuous Zunser  agreed,  but  the  innkeeper,  just 
before  the  end  of  the  year,  went  to  a  government 
official  and  reported  that  there  was  a  boy  at  his 
house  who  was  fit  to  be  a  soldier.    Young  Zun- 

96 


ser  was  pressed  into  the  service.  He  was  then 
thirteen.  It  was  in  the  barracks  that  he  com- 
posed his  first  three  songs.  In  these  songs  he 
poured  out  his  heart,  told  all  his  woe,  but  did 
not  print  them,  **for,"  he  said,  **it  was  my  own 
case." 

On  being  released  from  the  service,  Zunser 
went  to  Vilna  and  continued  his  trade  as  a  gold- 
lace  maker.  He  also  wrote  many  poems  and 
songs.  They  were  not  printed  at  first,  but  cir- 
culated in  written  copies.  Zunser  is  said  to  be 
the  first  man  to  write  songs  in  Yiddish,  and 
soon  he  became  famous.  It  was  *the  lace- 
maker  boy'  everywhere,"  as  the  poet  expressed 
it.  Now  that  he  could  make  money  by  his  songs 
he  gave  up  his  trade  and  devoted  himself  to  art. 
In  1861  he  returned  to  his  native  town  a  great 
man.  There  he  first  saw  his  work  in  print. 
Then  came  a  period  when  he  wrote  a  great 
deal  and  performed  every  day  his  function  as  wed- 
ding bard.  For  ten  years  things  prospered  with 
him,  but  in  1871  his  wife  and  four  children  died 
of  cholera.  Zunser  composed  the  famous  dirge, 
left  Vilna,  which  appeared  to  him  unlucky,  and 
went  to  Minsk.  Here  he  continued  to  get  a  living 
with  his  pen,  and  married  again.  Ten  years  ago 
he  came  to  New  York  with  his  family  and  kept 
up  his  occupation  as  wedding  bard  for  some  time. 

97 


The  character  of  Zunser's  poetry  is  what 
might  be  expected  from  his  popularity,  sUght 
education,  and  humble  position  in  the  Jewish 
world.  His  melancholy  is  common  to  all  Jewish 
poets.  There  is  a  constant  reference  to  his 
race,  too,  a  love  for  it,  and  a  sort  of  humble 
pride.  More  than  any  of  the  four  poets  whom 
we  are  to  mention,  with  the  possible  exception 
of  Morris  Rosenfeld,  Zunser  has  a  fresh  lyric 
quality  which  has  gone  far  to  endear  him  to  the 
people.  Yet  in  spite  of  his  sweet  bird-like  speed 
of  expression,  Zunser's  is  a  poetry  of  ideas,  altho 
the  ideas  are  simple,  fragmentary,  and  fanciful, 
and  are  seldom  sustained  beyond  what  is  admis- 
sible to  the  lyric  touch.  The  pale  cast  of 
thought,  less  marked  in  Zunser's  work  than  in 
that  of  the  other  three  poets,  is  also  a  common 
characteristic  of  Jewish  poetry.  Melancholy, 
patriotic,  and  thoughtful,  what  is  lacking  In 
Zunser  is  what  all  modern  Jewish  poetry  lacks 
and  what  forms  a  sweet  part  of  Anglo-Saxon 
literature — the  distinctively  sensuous  element. 
A  Keats  is  a  Hebrew  impossibility.  The  poetry 
of  simple  presentation,  of  the  qualities  of  mere 
physical  nature,  is  strikingly  absent  in  the  im- 
aginative work  of  this  serious  and  moral  people. 
The  intellectual  element  is  always  noticeable, 
even  in  simple  Zunser,  the  poet  of  the  people. 

98 


A  CHAMPION  OF  RACE 


A  striking  contrast  to  the  popular  wedding 
bard  is  Menahem  Dolitzki,  called  the  Hebrew 
poet  because  he  has  the  distinction  of  writing  in 
the  old  Hebrew  language. 

His  learning  is  limited  to  the  old  literature 
of  his  race.  He  is  not  a  generally  well  educated 
man,  not  knowing  or  caring  anything  about 
modern  life  or  ideas.  The  poet  of  the  holy 
tongue,  he  is  what  the  Jews  call  maskU,  fellow  of 
wisdom.  The  aloof  dignity  of  his  position  fills 
him  with  a  mild  contempt  for  the  ''jargon,"  the 
Yiddish  of  Rosenfeld  and  Zunser,  and  makes 
him  distrustful  of  what  the  fourth  poet,  Wald, 
represents — the  modern  socialistic  spirit. 

Singularly  enough,  he  is  called  by  the  socialists 
of  the  Ghetto  the  poet  of  the  dilettanti.  An  An- 
glo-Saxon American  employs  the  term  to  mean 
those  persons  superficially  interested  in  much, 
deeply  interested  in  nothing ;  but  these  social- 
istic spirits  stigmatize  as  dilettante  whatever  is 
not  immersed  in  the  spirit  of  the  modern  world. 
The  man  of  form,  the  lover  of  the  old,  the  cool 
man  with  scholastic  tinge  has  no  place  in  the 
sympathetic  imagination  of  the  Ghetto  intellec- 
tuals. They  leave  him  to  the  learned  among  old 


99 


fogies.  And  it  is  true  that 
Dolitzki's  appeal  is  a  limited 
one,  both  as  a  man  and  as  a 
poet.  He  is  a  handsome  man 
of  about  forty-five  years,  with 
a  fine  profile,  an  unenthusiastic 
manner,  a  native  reserve  very 
evident  in  his  way  of  reading 
his  poetry.  He  has  nothing  of 
the  buoyant  spontaneity,  the 
impersonal  feeling  of  Zunser. 
The  poet  of  the  people  was  a 
part  of  his  verse  as  he  read. 
He  threw  himself  into  it,  iden- 
tified himself  with  his  musical 
and  fanciful  creation.  But  Dolitzki,  who  has  been 
recently  a  travelling  agent  for  a  Yiddish  news- 
paper on  the  east  side,  and  has  a  little  home 
suggesting  greater  cleanliness  and  comfort  than 
that  of  Zunser,  held  his  manuscript  at  arm's 
length  and  read  his  verses  with  no  apparent  sign 
of  emotion.  About  his  poetry  and  life  he  talked 
with  comparative  reserve,  in  the  former  evidently 
caring  most  for  the  form  and  the  language,  and 
in  the  latter  for  the  ideas  which  determined  his 
intellectual  life  rather  than  for  picturesque  de- 
tails and  events. 

Dolitzki's  life  and  work  are  identified  with  the 


MENAHEM  DOLITZKI 


lOO 


revival  of  Hebrew  literature  of  fifty  years  ago, 
and,  more  narrowly,  of  twenty  years  ago.  He 
is  one  of  the  great  poets  of  that  revival,  and 
wherever  it  is  felt  in  the  Jewish  world,  there 
Dolitzki  is  known  and  admired.  He  was  born 
in  Byelostock,  but  spent  his  early  manhood  in 
Moscow,  whence  he  was  expelled.  That  e^^ent 
partly  determined  the  character  of  his  first  writ- 
ings— patriotic  poems  of  culture,  reasoned  out- 
cries against  the  religious  prejudice  of  the  or- 
thodox Jews,  the  Jews  who  take  their  stand  on 
the  Talmud,  led  by  the  hair-splitting  rabbi,  up- 
holders of  the  narrow  Jewish  theology.  Just  as 
the  revival  of  learning  in  Europe  brought  doubt 
of  orthodoxy  along  with  it,  so  the  revival  of  the 
pure  Hebrew  literature  brought  doubt  of  the 
religion  of  the  established  rabbi,  founded  on  a 
minute  interpretation  of  the  Talmud.  The  He- 
brew scholars  who  went  back  to  the  sources  of 
Jewish  literature  for  their  inspiration  were  worse 
than  infidels  to  the  orthodox.  And  Dolitzki  was 
the  poet  of  these  'Mnfidels." 

When,  however,  the  Jews  were  expelled  from 
Moscow,  Dolitzki's  interest  broadened  to  love 
of  his  race.  It  is  not  so  much  interest  in  human 
nature  that  these  noble  and  austere  poems 
manifest,  as  an  epic  love  for  the  race  as  a  whole, 
a  lofty  and  abstract  emotion.    The  intellectual 

lOI 


and  moral  element  characteristic  of  Jewish 
poetry  is  particularly  marked  in  Dolitzki's  work. 
His  first  poems,  those  of  culture  inspired  by 
hatred  of  Talmudic  prejudice,  and  his  later 
ones,  filled  with  the  abstract  love  of  his  race,  are 
poems  of  idealism  expressed  largely  in  compli- 
cated symbolical  language,  lacking,  as  compared 
with  Zunser's  poetry,  spontaneity,  wholly  want- 
ing in  sensuous  imagery,  but  written  in  musical 
and  finished  verse. 

A  poem  illustrating  Dolitzki's  first  period  tells 
how  a  cherub  bore  the  poet,  symbolizing  the 
Jewish  people,  aloft  where  he  could  see  pure 
and  beautiful  things,  but  soon  the  earth  ap- 
peared, in  the  shape  of  a  round  loaf  of  bread 
symbolizing  need  and  poverty  and  prejudice;  and 
to  this  the  aspiring  Jew  must  return  and  from 
this  he  could  not  escape.  One  of  the  poems 
in  which  Dolitzki's  love  of  his  race  is  expressed 
describes  a  man  and  a  maiden  (the  Jewish  race) 
who,  driven  by  love  of  one  another  and  fear  of 
oppression,  are  sitting  upon  a  lofty  rock.  Below 
them  on  the  plain  they  see  their  family  murdered 
by  the  invaders.  Then  they  voluntarily  die,  de- 
claring that  they  will  yet  live  forever  in  the  race. 

Dolitzki's  remote  idealism  represents  a  nobler 
kind  of  thing  than  what  is  generally  associated 
with  the  east  side.    A  dignified  and  epic  poet, 

I02 


he  is  filled  with  moral  rather  than  enthusiastic 
love  of  the  old  language  and  the  old  race. 

A  SINGER  OF  LABOR 

Morris  Rosenfeld,  poet  and  former  tailor, 
strikes  in  his  personality  and  writings  the  weary 
minor.  Full  of  tears  are  the  man  and  his  song. 
Zunser,  Dolitzki,  and  Wald,  altho  in  their  verse 
runs  the  eternal  melancholy  of  poetry  and  of  the 
Jews,  have  yet  physical  buoyancy  and  a  robust 
spirit.  But  Rosenfeld,  small,  dark,  and  fragile 
in  body,  with  fine  eyes  and  drooping  eyelashes, 
and  a  plaintive,  childlike  voice,  is  weary  and  sick 
— a  simple  poet,  a  sensitive  child,  a  bearer  of 
burdens,  an  east  side  tailor.  Zunser  and  Do- 
litzki have  shown  themselves  able  to  cope  with 
their  hard  conditions,  but  the  sad  little  Rosen- 
feld, unpractical  and  incapable  in  all  but  his 
songs,  has  had  the  hardest  time  of  all.  His  life 
has  been  typical  of  that  of  many  a  delicate  poet 
— a  life  of  privation,  of  struggle  borne  by  weak 
shoulders,  and  a  spirit  and  temperament  not 
fitted  to  meet  the  world. 

Much  younger  than  Zunser  or  Dolitzki,  Mor- 
ris Rosenfeld  was  born  thirty-eight  years  ago 
in  a  small  village  in  the  province  of  Subalk,  in 
Russian  Poland,  at  the  end  of  the  last  Polish 

103 


revolution.  The  very  night  he  was  born  the 
world  began  to  oppress  him,  for  insurgents 
threw  rocks  through  the  window.  His  grand- 
father was  rich,  but  his  father  lost  the  money  in 
business,  and  Morris  received  very  little  educa- 
tion— only  the  Talmud  and  a  little  German, 


MORRIS  ROSENFELD 


which  he  got  at  a  school  in  Warsaw.  He 
married  when  he  was  sixteen,  because  my 
father  told  me  to,"  as  the  poet  expressed  it. 
He  ran  away  from  Poland  to  avoid  being  pressed 
into  the  army.        would  like  to  serve  my  coun- 

104 


try,"  he  said,  if  there  had  been  any  freedom  for 
the  Jew."  Then  he  went  to  Holland  and  learned 
the  trade  of  diamond-cutting;  then  to  London, 
where  he  took  up  tailoring. 

Hearing  that  the  tailors  had  won  a  strike  in 
America,  he  came  to  New  York,  thinking  he 
would  need  to  work  here  only  ten  hours  a  day. 
**But  what  I  heard,"  he  said,  *^was  a  lie.  I 
found  the  sweat-shops  in  New  York  just  as  bad 
as  they  were  in  London." 

In  those  places  he  worked  for  many  years, 
worked  away  his  health  and  strength,  but  at  the 
same  time  composed  many  a  sweetly  sad  song. 
**I  worked  in  the  sweat-shop  in  the  daytime,"  he 
said  to  me,  "and  at  night  I  worked  at  my  poems. 
I  could  not  help  writing  them.  My  heart  was 
full  of  bitterness.  If  my  poems  are  sad  and 
plaintive,  it  is  because  I  expressed  my  own  feel- 
ings, and  because  my  surroundings  were  sad." 

Next  to  Zunser,  Rosenfeld  is  the  most  popular 
of  the  four  Jewish  poets.  Zunser  is  most  pop- 
ular in  Russia,  Rosenfeld  in  this  country.  Both 
write  in  the  universal  Yiddish  or  ^'jargon,"  both 
are  simple  and  spontaneous,  musical  and  un- 
tutored. But,  unlike  Zunser,  Rosenfeld  is  a 
thorough  representative,  one  might  say  victim, 
of  the  modern  spirit.  Zunser  sings  to  an  older 
and  more  buoyant  Jewish  world,  to  the  Russian 

105 


Hebrew  village  and  the  country  at  large. 
Rosenfeld  in  weary  accents  sings  to  the  maimed 
spirit  of  the  Jewish  slums.  It  is  a  fresh,  naive 
note,  the  pathetic  cry  of  the  bright  spirit  crushed 
in  the  poisonous  air  of  the  Ghetto.  The  first 
song  that  Rosenfeld  printed  in  English  is  this  : 

I  lift  mine  eyes  against  the  sky, 
The  clouds  are  weeping,  so  am  I ; 
I  lift  mine  eyes  again  on  high, 
The  sun  is  smiling,  so  am  I. 
Why  do  I  smile  ?  Why  do  I  weep  ? 
I  do  not  know  ;  it  lies  too  deep. 

**I  hear  the  winds  of  autumn  sigh. 
They  break  my  heart,  they  make  me  cry ; 
I  hear  the  birds  of  lovely  spring. 
My  hopes  revive,  I  help  them  sing. 
Why  do  I  sing  ?  Why  do  I  cry  ? 
It  lies  so  deep,  I  know  not  why." 


A  DREAMER  OF  BROTHERHOOD 

Abraham  Wald,  whose  nom  de  plume  is  Lessin, 
is  only  twenty-eight  years  old,  the  youngest  and 
least  known  of  the  four  poets,  yet  in  some  re- 
spects the  most  interesting.  He  is  the  only  one 
who  is  on  a  level  with  the  intellectual  alertness 
of  the  day.  His  education  is  broad  and  in  some 
directions  thorough.  He  is  the  only  one  of  the 
four  poets  whom  we  are  discussing  who  knows 

1 06 


Russian,  which  language  he  often  writes.  He  is 
an  imaginative  critic,  a  violent  socialist,  and  an 
excitable  lover  of  nature. 

One  of  his  friends  called  the  poet  on  one  occa- 
sion an  intellectual  debauchL  It  was  in  a  Canal 
Street  cafe,  where  Wald  was  talking  in  an  ex- 
cited tone  to  several  other  intellectuals.  He  is 
a  short,  stocky  man,  with  a  suggestion  of  physi- 
cal power.  His  eyes  are  brilliant,  and  there 
seems  to  be  going  on  in  him  a  sort  of  intellectual 
consumption.  He  is  restlessly  intense  in  man- 
ner, speaks  in  images,  and  is  always  passionately 
convinced  of  the  truth  of  what  he  sees  so  clearly 
but  seldom  expresses  in  cold  logic.  His  fevered 
idealism  meets  you  in  his  frank,  quick  gaze  and 
impulsive  and  rapid  speech. 

Lacking  in  repose,  balance,  and  sobriety  of 
thought,  Wald  is  well  described  by  his  friend's 
phrase.  Equally  well  he  may  be  called  the 
Jewish  bohemian.  He  is  not  dissipated  in  the 
ordinary  sense.  Coffee  and  tea  are  the  drinks  he 
finds  in  his  little  cafes.  But  in  these  places  he 
practically  lives,  disputing,  arguing,  expound- 
ing, with  whomsoever  he  may  find.  He  has  no 
fixed  home,  but  sleeps  wherever  inevitable 
weariness  finds  him.  He  prefers  to  sleep  not  at 
all.  Like  all  his  talented  tribe  he  is  poor,  and 
makes  an  occasional  dollar  by  writing  a  poem  or 

107 


an  article  for  an  east  side  newspaper.  When 
he  has  collected  three  or  four  dollars  he  quits 
the  newspaper  office  and  seeks  again  his  be- 
loved cafe,  violently  to  impart  his  quick-coming 
thoughts  and  impulses.  Only  after  his  money  is 
gone — and  it  lasts  him  many  days — does  he  re- 
turn to  his  work  on  the  paper,  the  editor  of 
which  must  be  an  uncommonly  good-natured 
fellow. 

Impelled  by  political  reasons,  Wald  left  Russia 
three  years  ago,  but  before  that  time,  which  was 
in  his  twenty-fifth  year,  he  had  passed  through 
eight  mental  and  moral  crises.  Perhaps  the 
number  was  a  poetical  exaggeration,  for  when  I 
asked  the  poet  to  enumerate  he  gave  only  five. 
As  a  boy  he  revolted  from  the  hair-splitting 
Talmudic  orthodoxy,  and  was  cursed  in  conse- 
quence ;  then  he  lost  his  Jewish  faith  altogether; 
then  his  whole  CuUur-Anschauung  changed,  on 
account  of  the  influence  of  Russian  literature. 
He  became  an  atheist  and  then  a  socialist  and 
perhaps  a  pantheist :  at  least  he  has  written 
poems  in  which  breathes  the  personified  spirit 
of  nature.  Without  the  peace  of  nature,  how- 
ever, is  the  man  and  his  work.  He  dislikes 
America  because  it  lacks  the  ebullient  activity 
of  moral,  imaginative  life.  Wald  likes  Russia 
better  than  America  because  Russia,  to  use  the 

109 


poet's  words,  is  idealism,  hope,  and  America  is 
realization. 

''Before  I  came  to  America,"  he  said,  *' I 
thought  it  would  not  be  as  interesting  as  Rus- 
sia, and  when  I  got  here  I  saw  that  I  was  right. 
America  seemed  all  worked  out  to  me,  as  if 
mighty  things  had  already  been  done,  but  it 
seemed  lifeless  at  the  core.  Russia,  on  the 
other  hand,  with  no  external  form  of  national 
prosperity,  is  all  activity  at  heart,  restless  long- 
ing. Russia  is  nothing  to  see,  but  alive  and 
bubbling  at  the  core.  The  American  wants  a 
legal  wife,  something  there  and  sure,  but  the 
Russian  wants  a  wife  behind  a  mountain,  through 
which  he  cannot  penetrate,  but  can  only  dream 
and  strive  for  her." 

These  four  poets  have  what  is  distinctive  of 
Jewish  poetry — the  pulse  of  desire  and  hope,  in 
which  there  is  strain  and  reproach,  constant 
effort.  The  Russian  Jew's  lack  of  appreciation 
of  completed  beauty  or  of  merely  sensuous  na- 
ture is  strikingly  illustrated  by  the  fact  that 
there  has  never  been  a  great  expression  of 
plastic  art  in  his  history.  Painting,  sculpture, 
and  architecture  are  nothing  to  the  Jew  in 
comparison  with  the  literature  and  music  of 
ideas.  In  nearly  all  the  Jews  of  talent  I  have 
met  there  is  the  same  intellectual  consumption, 

no 


the  excitement  of  beauty,  but  no  enjoyment  of 
pure  beauty  of  form.  The  race  is  still  too  un- 
happy, too  unsatisfied,  has  too  much  to  gain,  to 
express  a  complacent  sense  of  the  beauty  of 
what  is. 

Wald's  is  the  poetry  of  socialism  and  of  na- 
ture, and  one  form  is  as  turbulent  as  the  other. 
He  writes,  for  instance,  of  the  prisoner  in 
Siberia,  his  verses  filled  with  passionate  rebel- 
lion. Then  he  tells  how  he  dreamed  beside  the 
gleaming  river,  and  of  the  fancies  that  passed 
through  his  brain — net  merely  pretty  fancies,  but 
passionately  moral  images  in  which  rebellion, 
longing,  wonder,  are  by  turns  expressed ;  never 
peaceful  enjoyment  of  nature,  never  simply  the 
humble  eye  that  sees  and  questions  not,  but 
always  the  moral  storm  and  stress. 

Wald  and  Rosenfeld  represent  at  once  things 
similar  and  unlike.  Both  are  associated  with  the 
modern  spirit  of  socialism,  both  are  identified 
with  the  heart  of  big  cities,  both  are  very  civil- 
ized, yet  in  temperament  and  quality  no  two  poets 
could  be  more  widely  separated.  Rosenfeld  is  the 
finer  spirit,  the  more  narrow,  too.  He  is  eminently 
the  Ghetto  Jew.  But  Wald,  as  one  sees  him 
talking  in  the  cafe,  his  whole  body  alive  with 
emotion,  with  his  youthful,  open  face,  his  con- 
stant energy,  and  the  modernity  and  freshness 


of  his  ideas,  seems  the  Russian  rather  than  the 
Jew,  and  suggests  the  vivid  spirit  of  Tolstoi. 

In  comparison  with  Wald  and  Rosenfeld  the 
older  men,  Dolitzki  and  Zunser,  seem  remote. 
Dolitzki  has  the  remoteness  of  culture  and 
Zunser  that  of  old  age  and  relative  peace  of 
spirit.  But  compared  among  themselves  the 
poets  of  the  four  are  Zunser  and  Rosenfeld,  the 
spontaneous  lyric  singers.  Wald,  however,  is 
making  his  way  rapidly  into  the  sympathetic  in- 
telligence of  the  socialists — a  growing  class — but 
has  not  as  yet  the  same  wide  appeal  as  the  two 
poets  who  sing  only  in  the  tongue  of  the  people. 


Chatpter  Five 


THEATRES,   ACTORS   AND  AUDIENCE 

In  the  three  Yiddish  theatres  on  the  Bowery 
is  expressed  the  world  of  the  Ghetto — that  New 
York  City  of  Russian  Jews,  large,  complex,  with 
a  full  life  and  civilization.  In  the  midst  of  the 
frivolous  Bowery,  devoted  to  tinsel  variety 
shows,  *'dive"  music-halls,  fake  museums,  triv- 
ial amusement  booths  of  all  sorts,  cheap  lodg- 
ing-houses, ten-cent  shops  and  Irish-American 
tough  saloons,  the  theatres  of  the  chosen  people 
alone  present  the  serious  as  well  as  the  trivial  in- 
terests of  an  entire  community.  Into  these  three 
buildings  crowd  the  Jews  of  all  the  Ghetto  classes 
— the  sweat-shop  woman  with  her  baby,  the  day- 
laborer,  the  small  Hester  Street  shopkeeper, 
the  Russian-Jewish  anarchist  and  socialist,  the 
Ghetto  rabbi  and  scholar,  the  poet,  the  journal- 
ist. The  poor  and  ignorant  are  in  the  great 
majority,  but  the  learned,  the  intellectual  and 
the  progressive  are  also  represented,  and  here, 
as  elsewhere,  exert  a  more  than  numerically 

113 


proportionate  influence  on  the  character  of  the 
theatrical  productions,  which,  nevertheless,  re- 
main essentially  popular.  The  socialists  and 
the  literati  create  the  demand  that  forces  into 
the  mass  of  vaudeville,  light  opera,  historical 
and  melodramatic  plays  a  more  serious  art  ele- 
ment, a  simple  transcript  from  life  or  the  theatric 
presentation  of  a  Ghetto  problem.  But  this  more 
serious  element  is  so  saturated  with  the  simple 
manners,  humor  and  pathos  of  the  life  of  the 
poor  Jew,  that  it  is  seldom  above  the  heartfelt 
understanding  of  the  crowd. 

The  audiences  vary  in  character  from  night  to 
night  rather  more  than  in  an  up-town  theatre. 
On  the  evenings  of  the  first  four  week-days  the 
theatre  is  let  to  a  guild  or  club,  many  hundred 
of  which  exist  among  the  working  people  of  the 
east  side.  Many  are  labor  organizations  repre- 
senting the  different  trades,  many  are  purely 
social,  and  others  are  in  the  nature  of  secret 
societies.  Some  of  these  clubs  are  formed  on 
the  basis  of  a  common  home  in  Russia.  The 
people,  for  instance,  who  came  from  Vilna,  a 
city  in  the  old  country,  have  organized  a  Vilna 
Club  in  the  Ghetto.  Then,  too,  the  anarchists 
have  a  society ;  there  are  many  socialistic  or- 
ders ;  the  newspapers  of  the  Ghetto  have  their 
constituency,  which  sometimes  hires  the  theatre. 

114 


Two  or  three  hundred  dollars  is  paid  to  the 
theatre  by  the  guild,  which  then  sells  the  tickets 
among  the  faithful  for  a  good  price.  Every 
member  of  the  society  is  forced  to  buy,  whether 
he  wants  to  see  the  play  or  not,  and  the  money 
made  over  and  above  the  expenses  of  hiring  the 
theatre  is  for  the  benefit  of  the  guild.  These 
performances  are  therefore  called  benefits." 
The  widespread  existence  of  such  a  custom  is  a 
striking  indication  of  the  growing  sense  of  cor- 
porate interests  among  the  laboring  classes  of 
the  Jewish  east  side.  It  is  an  expression  of  the 
socialistic  spirit  which  is  marked  everywhere  in 
the  Ghetto. 

On  Friday,  Saturday  and  Sunday  nights  the 
theatre  is  not  let,  for  these  are  the  Jewish  holi- 
days, and  the  house  is  always  completely  sold 
out,  altho  prices  range  from  twenty-five  cents  to 
a  dollar.  Friday  night  is,  properly  speaking,  the 
gala  occasion  of  the  week.  That  is  the  legiti- 
mate Jewish  holiday,  the  night  before  the  Sab- 
bath. Orthodox  Jews,  as  well  as  others,  may 
then  amuse  themselves.  Saturday,  altho  the 
day  of  worship,  is  also  of  holiday  character  in 
the  Ghetto.  This  is  due  to  the  Christian  influ- 
ences, to  which  the  Jews  are  more  and  more 
sensitive.  Through  economic  necessity  Jewish 
workingmen  are  compelled  to  work  on  Saturday, 

115 


and,  like  other  workingmen,  look  upon  Saturday 
night  as  a  holiday,  in  spite  of  the  frown  of  the 
orthodox.  Into  Sunday,  too,  they  extend  their 
freedom,  and  so  in  the  Ghetto  there  are  now 
three  popularly  recognized  nights  on  which  to 
go  with  all  the  world  to  the  theatre. 

On  those  nights  the  theatre  presents  a  pecu- 
liarly picturesque  sight.  Poor  workingmen  and 
women  with  their  babies  of  all  ages  fill  the 
theatre.  Great  enthusiasm  is  manifested,  sin- 
cere laughter  and  tears  accompany  the  sincere 
acting  on  the  stage.  Pedlars  of  soda-water, 
candy,  of  fantastic  gewgaws  of  many  kinds,  mix 
freely  with  the  audience  between  the  acts. 
Conversation  during  the  play  is  received  with 
strenuous  hisses,  but  the  falling  of  the  curtain  is 
the  signal  for  groups  of  friends  to  get  together 
and  gossip  about  the  play  or  the  affairs  of  the 
week.  Introductions  are  not  necessary,  and  the 
Yiddish  community  can  then  be  seen  and  ap- 
proached with  great  freedom.  On  the  stage 
curtain  are  advertisements  of  the  wares  of  Hes- 
ter Street  or  portraits  of  the  ''star"  actors.  On 
the  programmes  and  circulars  distributed  in  the 
audience  are  sometimes  amusing  announcements 
of  coming  attractions  or  lyric  praise  of  the 
''stars."  Poetry  is  not  infrequent,  an  example 
of  which,  literally  translated,  is  : 

1 16 


Labor,  ye  stars,  as  ye  will. 

Ye  cannot  equal  the  artist ; 

In  the  garden  of  art  ye  shall  not  flourish  ; 

Ye  can  never  achieve  his  fame. 

Can  you  play  Hamlet  like  him  ? 

The  Wild  King,  or  the  Huguenots  ? 

Are  you  gifted  with  feeling 

So  much  as  to  imitate  him  like  a  shadow  ? 

Your  fame  rests  on  the  pen  ; 

On  the  show-cards  your  flight  is  high ; 

But  on  the  stage  every  one  can  see 

How  your  greatness  turns  to  ashes, 

Tomashevsky  !    Artist  great ! 

No  praise  is  good  enough  for  you ; 

Every  one  remains  your  ardent  friend. 

Of  all  the  stars  you  remain  the  king. 

You  seek  no  tricks,  no  false  quibbles ; 

One  sees  Truth  itself  playing. 

Your  appearance  is  godly  to  us ; 

Every  movement  is  full  of  grace  ; 

Pleasing  is  your  every  gesture  ; 

Sugar-sweet  your  every  turn  ; 

You  remain  the  King  of  the  Stage  ; 

Everything  falls  to  your  feet. 

On  the  playboards  outside  the  theatre,  con- 
taining usually  the  portrait  of  a  star,  are  also 
lyric  and  enthusiastic  announcements.  Thus, 
on  the  return  of  the  great  Adler,  who  had  been 
ill,  it  was  announced  on  the  boards  that  **the 
splendid  eagle  has  spread  his  wings  again." 

The  Yiddish  actors,  as  may  be  inferred  from 
the  verses  quoted,  take  themselves  with  peculiar 
seriousness,  justified  by  the  enthusiasm,  almost 
worship,  with  which  they  are  regarded  by  the 

117 


people.  Many  a  poor  Jew,  man  or  girl,  who 
makes  no  more  than  $io  a  week  in  the  sweat- 
shop, will  spend  $5  of  it  on  the  theatre,  which  is 
practically  the  only  amusement  of  the  Ghetto 
Jew.  He  has  not  the  loafing  and  sporting  in- 
stincts of  the  poor  Christian,  and  spends  his 
money  for  the  theatre  rather  than  for  drink.  It 
is  not  only  to  see  the  play  that  the  poor  Jew 
goes  to  the  theatre.  It  is  to  see  his  friends  and 
the  actors.  With  these  latter  he,  and  more 
frequently  she,  try  in  every  way  to  make  ac- 
quaintance, but  commonly  are  compelled  to 
adore  at  a  distance.  They  love  the  songs  that 
are  heard  on  the  stage,  and  for  these  the  de- 
mand is  so  great  that  a  certain  bookshop  on  the 
east  side  makes  a  specialty  of  publishing  them. 

The  actor  responds  to  this  popular  enthusiasm 
with  sovereign  contempt.  He  struts  about  in 
the  cafes  on  Canal  and  Grand  Streets,  conscious 
of  his  greatness.    He  refers  to  the  crowd  as 

Moses"  with  superior  condescension  or  hu- 
morous vituperation.  Like  thieves,  the  actors 
have  a  jargon  of  their  own,  which  is  esoteric 
and  jealously  guarded.  Their  pride  gave  rise  a 
year  or  two  ago  to  an  amusing  strike  at  the 
People's  Theatre.  The  actors  of  the  three 
Yiddish  companies  in  New  York  are  normally 
paid  on  the  share  rather  than  the  salary  sys- 

118 


tern.  In  the  case  of  the  company  now  at  the 
People's  Theatre,  this  system  proved  very  prof- 
itable. The  star  actors,  Jacob  Adler  and  Boris 
Thomashevsky,  and  their  wives,  who  are  ac- 
tresses— Mrs.  Adler  being  the  heavy  realistic 
tragedienne  and  Mrs.  Thomashevsky  the  star 
soubrette — have  probably  received  on  an  average 
during  that  time  as  much  as  $125  a  week  for 
each  couple.  But  they,  with  Mr.  Edelstein,  the 
business  man,  are  lessees  of  the  theatre,  run  the 
risk  and  pay  the  expenses,  which  are  not  small. 
The  rent  of  the  theatre  is  $20,000  a  year,  and 
the  weekly  expenses,  besides,  amount  to  about 
$1,100.  The  subordinate  actors,  who  risk  noth- 
ing, since  they  do  not  share  the  expenses, 
have  made  amounts  during  this  favorable  period 
ranging  from  $14  a  week  on  the  average  for  the 
poorest  actors  to  $75  for  those  just  beneath  the 
''stars."  But,  in  spite  of  what  is  exceedingly 
good  pay  in  the  Bowery,  the  actors  of  this 
theatre  formed  a  union,  and  struck  for  wages 
instead  of  shares.  This  however,  was  only  an 
incidental  feature.  The  real  cause  was  that  the 
management  of  the  theatre,  with  the  energetic 
Thomashevsky  at  the  head,  insisted  that  the 
actors  should  be  prompt  at  rehearsals,  and  if 
they  were  not,  indulged  in  unseemly  epithets. 
The  actors'  pride  was  aroused,  and  the  union 

119 


was  formed  to  insure  their  ease  and  dignity  and 
to  protect  them  from  harsh  words.  The  man- 
agement imported  actors  from  Chicago.  Several 
of  the  actors  here  stood  by  their  employers, 
notably  Miss  Weinblatt,  a  popular  young  in- 
genue, who,  on  account  of  her  great  memory  is 
called  the  ''Yiddish  Encyclopedia,"  and  Miss 
Gudinski,  an  actress  of  commanding  presence. 
Miss  Weinblatt  forced  her  father,  once  an  actor, 
now  a  farmer,  into  the  service  of  the  management. 
But  the  actors  easily  triumphed.  Misses  Gudin- 
ski and  Weinblatt  were  forced  to  join  the  union, 
Mr.  Weinblatt  returned  to  his  farm,  the  scabs" 
were  packed  off  to  Philadelphia,  and  the  wages 
system  introduced.  A  delegation  was  sent  to 
Philadelphia  to  throw  cabbages  at  the  new  ac- 
tors, who  appeared  in  the  Yiddish  performances 
in  that  city.  The  triumphant  actors  now  receive 
on  the  average  probably  $io  to  $15  a  week  less 
than  under  the  old  system.  Mr.  Conrad,  who 
began  the  disaffection,  receives  a  salary  of  $29  a 
week,  fully  $10  less  than  he  received  for  months 
before  the  strike.  But  the  dignity  of  the  Yid- 
dish actor  is  now  placed  beyond  assault.  As 
one  of  them  recently  said  :  "We  shall  no  longer 
be  spat  upon  nor  called  *dog.*  " 

The  Yiddish  actor  is  so  supreme  that  until 
recently  a  regular  system  of  hazing  playwrights 

120 


was  in  vogue.  Joseph  Latteiner  and  Professor 
M.  Horowitz  were  long  recognized  as  the  only 
legitimate  Ghetto  playwrights.  When  a  new 
writer  came  to  the  theatre  with  a  manuscript, 
various  were  the  pranks  the  actors  would  play. 
They  would  induce  him  to  try,  one  after  another, 
all  the  costumes  in  the  house,  in  order  to  help 
him  conceive  the  characters ;  or  they  would 
make  him  spout  the  play  from  the  middle  of  the 
stage,  they  themselves  retiring  to  the  gallery  to 

see  how  it  sounded."  In  the  midst  of  his  exer- 
tions they  would  slip  away,  and  he  would  find 
himself  shouting  to  the  empty  boards.  Or,  in 
the  midst  of  a  mock  rehearsal,  some  actor  would 
shout,  He  is  coming,  the  great  Professor 
Horowitz,  and  he  will  eat  you  "  ;  and  they  would 
rush  from  the  theatre  with  the  panic-stricken 
playwright  following  close  at  their  heels. 

The  supremacy  of  the  Yiddish  actor  has,  how- 
ever, its  humorous  limitations.  The  orthodox 
Jews  who  go  to  the  theatre  on  Friday  night,  the 
beginning  of  Sabbath,  are  commonly  somewhat 
ashamed  of  themselves  and  try  to  quiet  their 
consciences  by  a  vociferous  condemnation  of  the 
actions  on  the  stage.  The  actor,  who  through 
the  exigencies  of  his  role,  is  compelled  to  appear 
on  Friday  night  with  a  cigar  in  his  mouth,  is 
frequently  greeted  with  hisses  and  strenuous 


cries  of  Shame,  shame, 
smoke  on  the  Sabbath  !  ** 
from  the  proletarian  hypo- 
crites in  the  gallery. 

The  plays  at  these  the- 
tres  vary  in  a  general  way 
with  the  varying  audiences 
of  which  I  have  spoken 
above.  The  thinking  so- 
cialists naturally  select  a 
less  violent  play  than  the 
comparatively  illogical  an- 
archists. Societies  of  rela- 
tively conservative  Jews 
desire  a  historical  play  in 
which  the  religious  He- 
brew in  relation  to  the  per- 
secuting Christian  is  put  in  pathetic  and  melodra- 
matic situations.  There  are  a  very  large  number 
of  ''culture"  pieces  produced,  which,  roughly 
speaking,  are  plays  in  which  the  difference  be- 
tween the  Jew  of  one  generation  and  the  next  is 
dramatically  portrayed.  The  pathos  or  tragedy 
involved  in  differences  of  faith  and  ''point  of 
view"  between  the  old  rabbi  and  his  more 
enlightened  children  is  expressed  in  many  his- 
torical plays  of  the  general  character  of  Uriei 
Acosta,  tho  in  less  lasting  form.    Such  plays. 


MR.  MOSHKOVITZ 


122 


however,  are  called  "historical  plunder"  by  that 
very  up-to-date  element  of  the  intellectual  Ghetto 
which  is  dominated  by  the  Russian  spirit  of 
realism.  It  is  the  demand  of  these  fierce  real- 
ists that  of  late  years  has  produced  a  supply  of 
theatrical  productions  attempting  to  present  a 
faithful  picture  of  the  actual  conditions  of  life. 
Permeating  all  these  kinds  of  plays  is  the 
amusement  instinct  pure  and  simple.  For  the 
benefit  of  the  crowd  of  ignorant  people  gro- 
tesque humor,  popular  songs,  vaudeville  tricks, 
are  inserted  everywhere. 

Of  these  plays  the  realistic  are  of  the  most 
value,*  for  they  often  give  the  actual  Ghetto  life 
with  surprising  strength  and  fidelity.  The  past 
three  years  have  been  their  great  seasons,  and 
have  developed  a  large  crop  of  new  playwrights, 
mainly  journalists  who  write  miscellaneous  arti- 
cles for  the  east  side  newspapers.  Jacob  Gor- 
din,  of  whom  we  shall  have  frequent  occasion  to 
speak,  has  been  writing  plays  for  several  years, 
and  was  the  first  realistic  playwright ;  he  remains 
the  strongest  and  most  prominent  in  this  kind  of 
play.  Professor  Horowitz,  who  is  now  the  lessee 
of  the  Windsor  Theatre,  situated  on  the  Bowery, 
between  Grand  and  Canal  Streets,  represents, 
along  with  Joseph  Latteiner,  the  conservative 

*  See  text ,  section  on  "Realism." 
i23 


and  traditional  aspects  of  the  stage.  He  is  an 
interesting  man,  fifty-six  years  of  age,  and  has 
been  connected  with  the  Yiddish  stage  practi- 
cally since  its  origin.  His  father  was  a  teacher 
in  a  Hebrew  school,  and  he  himself  is  a  man  of 
uncommon  learning.  He  has  made  a  great 
study  of  the  stage,  has  written  one  hundred  and 
sixty-seven  plays,  and  claims  to  be  an  authority 
on  dramaturgic*  Latteiner  is  equally  productive, 
but  few  of  their  plays  are  anything  more  than 
Yiddish  adaptations  of  old  operas  and  melo- 
dramas in  other  languages.  Long  runs  are 
impossible  on  the  Yiddish  stage  and  conse- 
quently the  playwrights  produce  many  plays  and 
are  not  very  scrupulous  in  their  methods.  The 
absence  of  dramatic  criticism  and  the  ignorance 
of  the  audience  enable  them  to  **crib  "  with  im- 
punity. As  one  of  the  actors  said,  Latteiner 
and  Horowitz  and  their  class  took  their  first 
plays  from  some  foreign  source  and  since  then 
have  been  repeating  themselves.  The  actor 
said  that  when  he  is  cast  in  a  Latteiner  play  he 
does  not  need  to  learn  his  part.  He  needs  only 
to  understand  the  general  situation  ;  the  char- 
acter and  the  words  he  already  knows  from 
having  appeared  in  many  other  Latteiner  plays. 

The  professor,  nevertheless,  naturally  regards 
himself  and  Latteiner  as  the  ''real"  Yiddish 

124 


playwrights.  For  many  years  after  the  first 
bands  of  actors  reached  the  New  York  Ghetto 
these  two  men  held  undisputed  sway.  Latteiner 
leaned  to  "romantic,"  Horowitz  to  culture," 
plays,  and  both  used  material  which  was  mainly 
historical.  The  professor  regards  that  as  the 
bright  period  of  the  Ghetto  stage.  Since  then 
there  has  been,  in  his  opinion,  a  decadence 
which  began  with  the  translation  of  the  classics 
into  Yiddish.  Hamlet,  Othello,  King  Lear,  and  plays 
of  Schiller,  were  put  upon  the  stage  and  are  still 
being  performed.  Sometimes  they  are  almost 
literally  translated,  sometimes  adapted  until 
they  are  realistic  representations  of  Jewish  life. 
Gordin's  Yiddish  King  Lear,  for  instance,  repre- 
sents Shakespeare's  idea  only  in  the  most 
general  way,  and  weaves  about  it  a  sordid  story 
of  Jewish  character  and  life.  Of  Hamlet  there 
are  two  versions,  one  adapted,  in  which  Shake- 
speare's idea  is  reduced  to  a  ludicrous  shadow, 
the  interest  lying  entirely  in  the  presentation  of 
Jewish  customs. 

The  first  act  of  the  Yiddish  version  represents 
the  wedding  feast  of  Hamlet's  mother  and  uncle. 
In  the  Yiddish  play  the  uncle  is  a  rabbi  in  a  small 
village  in  Russia.  He  did  not  poison  Hamlet's 
father  but  broke  the  latter's  heart  by  wooing 
and  winning  his  queen.    Hamlet  is  off  some- 

126 


where  getting  educated  as  a  rabbi.  While  he  is 
gone  his  father  dies.  Six  weeks  afterwards  the 
son  returns  in  the  midst  of  the  wedding  feast, 
and  turns  the  feast  into  a  funeral.  Scenes  of 
rant  follow  between  mother  and  son,  Ophelia 
and  Hamlet,  interspersed  with  jokes  and  sneers 
at  the  sect  of  rabbis  who  think  they  communi- 
cate with  the  angels.  The  wicked  rabbi  con- 
spires against  Hamlet,  trying  to  make  him  out  a 
nihilist.  The  plot  is  discovered  and  the  wicked 
rabbi  is  sent  to  Siberia.  The  last  act  is  the  grave- 
yard scene.  It  is  snowing  violently.  The  grave 
is  near  a  huge  windmill.  Ophelia  is  brought  in 
on  the  bier.  Hamlet  mourns  by  her  side  and  is 
married,  according  to  the  Jewish  custom,  to  the 
dead  woman.  Then  he  dies  of  a  broken  heart. 
The  other  version  is  almost  a  literal  translation. 
To  these  translations  of  the  classics,  Professor 
Horowitz  objects  on  the  ground  that  the  igno- 
rant Yiddish  public  cannot  understand  them, 
because  what  learning  they  have  is  limited  to 
distinctively  Yiddish  subjects  and  traditions. 

Another  important  step  in  what  the  professor 
calls  the  degeneration  of  the  stage  was  the 
introduction  a  few  years  ago  of  the  American 

pistol"  play — meaning  the  fierce  melodrama 
which  has  been  for  so  long  a  characteristic  of 
the  English  plays  produced  on  the  Bowery. 

127 


But  what  has  contributed  more  than  anything 
else  to  what  the  good  man  calls  the  present 
deplorable  condition  of  the  theatre  was  the 
advent  of  realism.  "  It  was  then,"  said  the 
professor  one  day  with  calm  indignation,  "that 
the  genuine  Yiddish  play  was  persecuted. 
Young  writers  came  from  Russia  and  swamped 
the  Ghetto  with  scurrilous  attacks  on  me  and 
Latteiner.  No  number  of  the  newspaper  ap- 
peared that  did  not  contain  a  scathing  criticism. 
They  did  not  object  to  the  actors,  who  in  reality 
were  very  bad,  but  it  was  the  play  they  aimed 
at.  These  writers  knew  nothing  about  drama- 
iurgiet  but  their  heads  were  filled  with  senseless 
realism.  Anything  historical  and  distinctively 
Yiddish  they  thought  bad.  For  a  long  time 
Latteiner  and  I  were  able  to  keep  their  realistic 
plays  off  the  boards,  but  for  the  last  few  years 
there  has  been  an  open  field  for  everybody.  The 
result  is  that  horrors  under  the  mask  of  realism 
have  been  put  upon  the  stage.  This  year  is  the 
worst  of  all — characters  butchered  on  the  stage, 
the  coarsest  language,  the  most  revolting  situa- 
tions, without  ideas,  with  no  real  material.  It 
cannot  last,  however.  Latteiner  and  I  continue 
with  our  real  Yiddish  plays,  and  we  shall  yet 
regain  entire  possession  of  the  field." 

At  least  this  much  may  fairly  be  conceded  to 

128 


Professor  Horowitz — that  the  realistic  writers 
in  what  is  in  reality  an  excellent  attempt  often 
go  to  excess,  and  are  often  unskilful  as  far  as 
stage  construction  is  concerned.  In  the  reaction 
from  plays  with  pleasant"  endings,  they  tend 
to  prefer  equally  unreal  "unpleasant"  endings, 
"onion"  plays,  as  the  opponents  of  the  realists 
call  them.  They,  however,  have  written  a  num- 
ber of  plays  which  are  distinctively  of  the  New 
York  Ghetto,  and  which  attempt  an  unsenti- 
mental presentation  of  truth.  A  rather  extended 
description  of  these  plays  is  given  in  the  next 
section.  Professor  Horowitz's  plays,  on  the  con- 
trary, are  largely  based  upon  the  sentimental 
representation  of  inexact  Jewish  history.  They 
herald  the  glory  and  wrongs  of  the  Hebrew  peo- 
ple, and  are  badly  constructed  melodramas  of 
conventional  character.  Another  class  of  plays 
written  by  Professor  Horowitz,  and  which  have 
occasionally  great  but  temporary  prosperity,  are 
what  he  calls  Zeiistucke*  Some  American  news- 
paper sensation  is  rapidly  dramatized  and  put 
hot  on  the  boards,  such  as  Marie  Barberi,  Dr,  Bu- 
chanan and  Dr*  Harris* 

The  three  theatres — the  People's,  the  Wind- 
sor and  the  Thalia,  which  is  on  the  Bowery 
opposite  the  Windsor — are  in  a  general  way 
very  similar  in  the  character  of  the  plays  pro- 

1 29 


duced,  in  the  standard  of  acting  and  in  the  char- 
acter of  the  audience.  There  are,  however,  some 
minor  differences.  The  People's  is  the  ''swell- 
est  "  and  probably  the  least  characteristic  of  the 
three.  It  panders  to  the  uptown"  element  of 
the  Ghetto,  to  the  downtown  tradesman  who  is 
beginning  to  climb  a  little.  The  baleful  influence 
in  art  of  the  nowveaux  riches  has  at  this  house  its 
Ghetto  expression.  There  is  a  tendency  there 
to  imitate  the  showy  qualities  of  the  Broadway 
theatres — melodrama,  farce,  scenery,  etc.  No  ba- 
bies are  admitted,  and  the  house  is  exceedingly 
clean  in  comparison  with  the  theatres  farther 
down  the  Bowery.  Three  years  ago  this  com- 
pany were  at  the  Windsor  Theatre,  and  made 
so  much  money  that  they  hired  the  People's,  that 
old  home  of  Irish-American  melodrama,  and  this 
atmosphere  seems  slightly  to  have  affected  the 
Yiddish  productions.  Magnificent  performances 
quite  out  of  the  line  of  the  best  Ghetto  drama 
have  been  attempted,  notably  Yiddish  dramati- 
zations of  successful  up-town  productions. 
Hauptman's  Versunkene  Glocke,  Sapho,  Quo  Vadis,  ^ 
and  other  popular  Broadway  plays  in  flimsy 
adaptations  were  tried  with  little  success,  as  the 
Yiddish  audiences  hardly  felt  themselves  at 
home  in  these  unfamiliar  scenes  and  settings. 
The  best  trained  of  the  three  companies  is  at 

130 


present  that  of  the  Thalia  Theatre.  Here  many 
excellent  realistic  plays  are  given.  Of  late 
years,  the  great  playwright  of  the  colony,  Jacob 
Gordin,  has  written  mainly  for  this  theatre. 
There,  too,  is  the  best  of  the  younger  actresses, 
Mrs.  Bertha  Kalisch.  She  is  the  prettiest 
woman  on  the  Ghetto  stage  and  was  at  one 
time  the  leading  lady  of  the  Imperial  Theatre  at 
Bucharest.  She  takes  the  leading  woman  parts 
in  plays  like  Fedora,  Magda  and  The  Jewish  Zaza* 
The  principal  actor  at  this  theatre  is  David 
Kessler,  who  is  one  of  the  best  of  the  Ghetto 
actors  in  realistic  parts,  and  one  of  the  worst 
when  cast,  as  he  often  is,  as  the  romantic  lover. 
The  actor  of  most  prominence  among  the  young- 
er men  is  Mr.  Moshkovitch,  who  hopes  to  be  a 
"star"  and  one  of  the  management.  When  the 
union  was  formed  he  was  in  a  quandary.  Should 
he  join  or  should  he  not  ?  He  feared  it  might  be 
a  bad  precedent,  which  the  actors  would  use 
against  him  when  he  became  a  star.  And  yet 
he  did  not  want  to  get  them  down  on  him.  So 
before  he  joined  he  entered  solemn  protests  at 
all  the  cafes  on  Canal  Street.  The  strike,  he 
maintained,  was  unnecessary.  The  actors  were 
well  paid  and  well  treated.  Discipline  should  be 
maintained.  But  he  would  join  because  of  his 
universal  sympathy  with  actors  and  with  the 

131 


poor — as  a  matter  of  sentiment  merely,  against 
his  better  judgment. 

The  company  at  the  Windsor  is  the  weakest, 
so  far  as  acting  is  concerned,  of  the  three.  Very 
few  realistic"  plays  are  given  there,  for  Pro- 
fessor Horowitz  is  the  lessee,  and  he  prefers  the 
historical  Jewish  opera  and  ''culture"  plays. 
Besides,  the  company  is  not  strong  enough  to 
undertake  successfully  many  new  productions, 
altho  it  includes  some  good  actors.  Here  Mrs. 
Prager  vies  as  a  prima-donna  with  Mrs.  Karb  of 
the  People's  and  Mrs.  Kalisch  of  the  Thalia. 
Professor  Horowitz  thinks  she  is  far  better  than 
the  other  two.  As  he  puts  it,  there  are  two  and 
a  half  prima-donnas  in  the  Ghetto — at  the  Wind- 
sor Theatre  there  is  a  complete  one,  leaving 
one  and  a  half  between  the  People's  and  the 
Thalia.  Jacob  Adler  of  the  People's,  the  profes- 
sor thinks,  is  no  actor,  only  a  remarkable  carica- 
turist. As  Adler  is  the  most  noteworthy  repre- 
sentative of  the  realistic  actors  of  the  Ghetto, 
the  professor's  opinion  shows  what  the  tradi- 
tional Yiddish  playwright  thinks  of  realism.  The 
strong  realistic  playwright,  Jacob  Gordin,  the 
professor  admits,  has  a  "biting"  dialogue,  and 
"unconsciously  writes  good  cultural  plays  which 
he  calls  realistic,  but  his  realistic  plays,  properly 
speaking,  are  bad  caricatures  of  life." 

133 


The  managers  and  actors  of  the  three  theatres 
criticise  one  another  indeed  with  charming  di- 
rectness, and  they  all  have  their  followers  in  the 
Ghetto  and  their  special  cafes  on  Grand  or  Canal 
Streets,  where  their  particular  prejudices  are  sym- 
pathetically expressed.  The  actors  and  lessees 
of  the  People's  are  proud  of  their  fine  theatre, 
proud  that  no  babies  are  brought  there.  There 
is  a  great  dispute  between  the  supporters  of  this 
theatre  and  those  of  the  Thalia  as  to  which  is 
the  stronger  company  and  which  produces  the 
most  realistic  plays.  The  manager  of  the  Thalia 
maintains  that  the  People's  is  sensational,  and 
that  his  theatre  alone  represents  true  realism ; 
while  the  supporter  of  the  People's  points  scorn- 
fully to  the  large  number  of  operas  produced  at 
the  Thalia.  They  both  unite  in  condemning 
the  Windsor,  Professor  Horowitz's  theatre,  as 
producing  no  new  plays  and  as  hopelessly  be- 
hind the  times,  "  full  of  historical  plunder."  An 
episode  in  The  Ragpicker  of  Paris,  played  at  the 
Windsor  when  the  present  People's  company 
were  there,  amusingly  illustrates  the  jealousy 
which  exists  between  the  companies.  An  old 
beggar  is  picking  over  a  heap  of  moth-eaten, 
coverless  books,  some  of  which  he  keeps  and 
some  rejects.  He  comes  across  two  versions  of 
a  play.  The  T<wo  Vagrants,  one  of  which  was  used 

134 


at  the  Thalia  and  the  other  at  the  Windsor. 
The  version  used  at  the  Windsor  receives  the 
beggar's  commendation,  and  the  other  is  thrown 
in  a  contemptuous  manner  into  a  dust-heap. 

REALISM,  THE  SPIRIT  OF  THE 
GHETTO  THEATRE 

The  distinctive  thing  about  the  intellectual  and 
artistic  life  of  the  Russian  Jews  of  the  New 
York  Ghetto,  the  spirit  of  realism,  is  noticeable 
even  on  the  popular  stage.  The  most  interesting 
plays  are  those  in  which  the  realistic  spirit  pre- 
dominates, and  the  best  among  the  actors  and 
playwrights  are  the  realists.  The  realistic  ele- 
ment, too,  is  the  latest  one  in  the  history  of  the 
Yiddish  stage.  The  Jewish  theatres  in  other 
parts  of  the  world,  which,  compared  with  the 
three  in  New  York,  are  unorganized,  present  only 
anachronistic  and  fantastic  historical  and  Biblical 
plays,  or  comic  opera  with  vaudeville  specialties 
attached.  These  things,  as  we  have  said  in  the 
last  section,  are,  to  be  sure,  given  in  the  Yiddish 
theatres  on  the  Bowery  too,  but  there  are  also 
plays  which  in  part  at  least  portray  the  customs 
and  problems  of  the  Ghetto  community,  and  are 
of  comparatively  recent  origin. 

There  are  two  men  connected  with  the  Ghetto 
stage  who  particularly  express  the  distinctive 

^35 


realism  of  the  intel-  \  "  ^  ' 
lectual east  side  — 
Jacob  Adler,  one  of 
the  two  best  actors, 
and  Jacob  Gordin,  the  play- 
wright. Adler,  a  man  of  great 
energy,  tried  for  many  years 
to  make  a  theatre  succeed  on 
the  Bowery  which  should 
give  only  what  he  called  good 
plays.  Gordin's  dramas,  with 
a  few  exceptions,  were  the 
only  plays  on  contemporary 
life  which  Adler  thought 
worthy  of  presentation.  The 
attempt  to  give  exclusively 
realistic  art,  which  is  the  only  art  on  the  Bowery, 
failed.  There,  in  spite  of  the  widespread  feeling 
for  realism,  the  mass  of  the  people  desire  to  be 
amused  and  are  bored  by  anything  with  the  form 
of  art.  So  now  Adler  is  connected  with  the 
People's  Theatre,  which  gives  all  sorts  of  shows, 
from  Gordin's  plays  to  ludicrous  history,  frivolous 
comic  opera,  and  conventional  melodrama.  But 
Adler  acts  for  the  most  part  only  in  the  better 
sort.  He  is  an  actor  of  unusual  power  and  vivid- 
ness. Indeed,  in  his  case,  as  in  that  of  some 
other  Bowery  actors,  it  is  only  the  Yiddish  dia- 

136 


JACOB  ADLER 


lect  which  stands  between  him  and  the  distinc- 
tion of  a  wide  reputation. 

In  almost  every  play  given  on  the  Bowery  all 
the  elements  are  represented.  Vaudeville,  his- 
tory, realism,  comic  opera,  are  generally  mixed 
together.  Even  in  the  plays  of  Gordin  there  are 
clownish  and  operatic  intrusions,  inserted  as  a 
conscious  condition  of  success.  On  the  other 
hand,  even  in  the  distinctively  formless  plays,  in 
comic  opera  and  melodrama,  there  are  striking 
illustrations  of  the  popular  feeling  for  realism, — 
bits  of  dialogue,  happy  strokes  of  characteriza- 
tion of  well-known  Ghetto  types,  sordid  scenes 
faithful  to  the  life  of  the  people. 

It  is  the  acting  which  gives  even  to  the  plays 
having  no  intrinsic  relation  to  reality  a  frequent 
quality  of  naturalness.  The  Yiddish  players, 
even  the  poorer  among  them,  act  with  remark- 
able sincerity.  Entirely  lacking  in  self-conscious- 
ness, they  attain  almost  from  the  outset  to  a 
direct  and  forcible  expressiveness.  They,  like 
the  audience,  rejoice  in  what  they  deem  the  truth. 
In  the  general  lack  of  really  good  plays  they  yet 
succeed  in  introducing  the  note  of  realism.  To  be 
true  to  nature  is  their  strongest  passion,  and  even 
in  a  conventional  melodrama  their  sincerity,  or 
their  characterization  in  the  comic  episodes, 
often  redeems  the  play  from  utter  barrenness. 

137 


And  the  little  touches  of  truth  to  the  life  of  the 
people  are  thoroughly  appreciated  by  the  audi- 
ence, much  more  generally  so  than  in  the  case  of 
the  better  plays  to  be  described  later,  where 
there  is  more  or  less  strictness  of  form  and  intel- 
lectual intention,  difficult  for  the  untutored  crowd 
to  understand.  In  the  easy  "  plays,  it  is  the  real- 
istic touches  which  tell  most.  The  spectators 
laugh  at  the  exact  reproduction  by  the  actor  of 
a  tattered  type  which  they  know  well.  A  scene 
of  perfect  sordidness  will  arouse  the  sympathetic 
laughter  or  tears  of  the  people.  It  is  so 
natural,"  they  say  to  one  another,  '*so  true." 
The  word  natural  "  indeed  is  the  favorite  term 
of  praise  in  the  Ghetto.  What  hits  home  to 
them,  to  their  sense  of  humor  or  of  sad  fact,  is 
sure  to  move,  altho  sometimes  in  a  manner  sur- 
prising to  a  visitor.  To  what  seems  to  him  very 
sordid  and  sad  they  will  frequently  respond  with 
laughter. 

One  of  the  most  beloved  actors  in  the  Ghetto 
is  Zelig  Mogalesco,  now  at  the  People's  Theatre, 
a  comedian  of  natural  talent  and  of  the  most  felic- 
itous instinct  for  characterization.  Unlike  the 
strenuous  Adler,  he  has  no  ideas  about  realism 
or  anything  else.  He  acts  in  any  kind  of  play, 
and  could  not  tell  the  difference  between  truth 
and  burlesque  caricature.    And  yet  he  isremark- 

13S 


able  for  his  naturalness,  and  popular  because  of 
it.  Adler  with  his  ideas  is  sometimes  too  serious 
for  the  people,  but  Mogalesco's  naive  fidelity  to 
reality  always  meets  with  the  sympathy  of  a 
simple  audience  loving  the  homely  and  unpreten- 
tious truth.  About  Adler,  strong  actor  that  he 
is,  and  also  about  the  talented  Gordin,  there  is 
something  of  the  doctrinaire. 

But,  altho  the  best  actors  of  the  three  Yiddish 
theatres  in  the  Ghetto  are  realists  by  instinct 
and  training,  the  thoroughly  frivolous  element  in 
the  plays  has  its  prominent  interpreters.  Joseph 
Latteiner  is  the  most  popular  playwright  in  the 
Bowery,  and  Boris  Thomashevsky  perhaps  the 
most  popular  actor.  Latteiner  has  written  over 
a  hundred  plays,  no  one  of  which  has  form  or 
ideas.  He  calls  them  ^olksstucke  (plays  of  the 
people),  and  naively  admits  that  he  writes  directly 
to  the  demand.  They  are  mainly  mixed  melo- 
drama, broad  burlesque,  and  comic  opera.  His 
heroes  are  all  intended  for  Boris  Thomashevsky, 
a  young  man,  fat,  with  curling  black  hair,  languor- 
ous eyes,  and  a  rather  effeminate  voice,  who  is 
thought  very  beautiful  by  the  girls  of  the  Ghetto. 
Thomashevsky  has  a  face  with  no  mimic  capac- 
ity, and  a  temperament  absolutely  impervious 
to  mood  or  feeling.  But  he  picturesquely  stands 
in  the  middle  of  the  stage  and  declaims  phleg- 

139 


matically  the  r61e  of  the  hero,  and  satisfies  the 
"romantic"  demand  of  the  audience.  Nothing 
could  show  more  clearly  how  much  more  genuine 
the  feeling  of  the  Ghetto  is  for  fidelity  to  life  than 
for  romantic  fancy.  How  small  a  part  of  the 
grace  and  charm  of  life  the  Yiddish  audiences 
enjoy  may  be  judged  by  the  fact  that  the  roman- 
tic appeal  of  a  Thomashevsky  is  eminently  satis- 
fying to  them.  Girls  and  men  from  the  sweat- 
shops, a  large  part  of  such  an  audience,  are 
moved  by  a  very  crude  attempt  at  beauty.  On 
the  other  hand  they  are  so  familiar  with  sordid 
fact,  that  the  theatrical  representation  of  it  must 
be  relatively  excellent.  Therefore  the  art  of  the 
Ghetto,  theatrical  and  other,  is  deeply  and  pain- 
fully realistic. 

When  we  turn  to  Jacob  Gordin's  plays,  to 
other  plays  of  similar  character  and  to  the 
audiences  to  which  they  specifically  appeal, 
we  have  realism  worked  out  consciously  in 
art,  the  desire  to  express  life  as  it 
is,  and  at  the  same  time  the  fre- 
quent expression  of  revolt  against 
the  reality  of  things,  and  particu- 
larly against  the  actual  system  of 
society.   Consequently  the  prob- 
lem" play  has  its  representa- 
tion in  the  Ghetto.    It  pre- 
1 40 


sents  the  hideous  conditions  of  life  in  the  Ghetto 
— the  poverty,  the  sordid  constant  reference  to 
money,  the  immediate  sensuality,  the  jocular 
callousness — and  underlying  the  mere  statement 
of  the  facts  an  intellectual  and  passionate  revolt. 

The  thinking  element  of  the  Ghetto  is  largely 
Socialistic,  and  the  Socialists  flock  to  the  theatre 
the  nights  when  the  Gordin  type  of  play  is  pro- 
duced. They  discuss  the  meaning  and  justice 
of  the  play  between  the  acts,  and  after  the  per- 
formance repair  to  the  Canal  Street  cafes  to 
continue  their  serious  discourse.  The  unthink- 
ing Nihilists  are  also  represented,  but  not  so 
frequently  at  the  best  plays  as  at  productions  in 
which  are  found  crude  and  screaming  condem- 
nation of  existing  conditions.  The  Anarchistic 
propaganda  hired  the  Windsor  Theatre  for  the 
establishment  of  a  fund  to  start  the  Freie  Arbei- 
ter  Stimme,  an  anarchistic  newspaper.  The 
Beggar  of  Odessa  was  the  play  selected, — an 
adaptation  of  the  Ragpicker  of  ^ariSf  a  play  by 
Felix  Plot,  the  Anarchistic  agitator  of  the  French 
Commune  in  1871.  The  features  of  the  play 
particularly  interesting  to  the  audience  were 
those  emphasizing  the  clashing  of  social  classes. 
The  old  ragpicker,  a  model  man,  clever,  bril- 
liant, and  good,  is  a  philosopher  too,  and  says 
many  things  warmly  welcomed  by  the  audience. 

141 


As  he  picks  up  his  rags  he  sings  about  how 
even  the  clothing  of  the  great  comes  but  to 
dust.  His  adopted  daughter  is  poor,  and  conse- 
quently noble  and  sweet.  The  villains  are  all 
rich ;  all  the  very  poor  characters  are  good. 
Another  play,  lyogele,  is  partly  a  satire  of  the 
rich  Jew  by  the  poor  Jew.  ''The  rich  Jews," 
sang  the  comedian,  ''toil  not,  neither  do  they 
spin.  They  work  not,  they  suffer  not,— why 
then  do  they  live  on  this  earth?"  This  un- 
thinking revolt  is  the  opposite  pole  to  the  un- 
thinking vaudeville  and  melodrama.  In  many 
of  the  plays  referred  to  roughly  as  of  the  Gordin- 
Adler  type — altho  they  were  not  all  written  by 
Gordin  nor  played  by  Adler — we  find  a  realism 
more  true  in  feeling  and  cast  in  stronger  dra- 
matic form.  In  some  of  these  plays  there  is  no 
problem  element ;  in  few  is  that  element  so 
prominent  as  essentially  to  interfere  with  the 
character  of  the  play  as  a  presentation  of  life. 

One  of  the  plays  most  characteristic,  as  at 
once  presenting  the  life  of  the  Ghetto  and  sug- 
gesting its  problems,  is  cMmna,  or  the  Yiddish 
Nora.  Altho  the  general  idea  of  Ibsen's  VolFs 
House  is  taken,  the  atmosphere  and  life  are 
original.  The  first  scene  represents  the  house 
of  a  poor  Jewish  laborer  on  the  east  side.  His 
wife  and  daughter  are  dressing  to  go  to  see 

142 


A  T>olVs  House  with  the  boarder, — a  young  man 
whom  they  have  been  forced  to  take  into  the 
house  because  of  their  poverty.  He  is  full  of 
ideas  and  philosophy,  and  the  two  women  fall  in 
love  with  him,  and  give  him  all  the  good  things 
to  eat.  When  the  laborer  returns  from  his  hard 
day's  work,  he  finds  that  there  is  nothing  to  eat, 
and  that  his  wife  and  daughter  are  going  to  the 
play  with  the  boarder.  The  women  despise  the 
poor  man,  who  is  fit  only  to  work,  eat,  and 
sleep.  The  wife  philosophizes  on  the  atrocity 
of  marrying  a  man  without  intellectual  interests, 
and  finally  drinks  carbolic  acid.  This  Ibsen  idea 
is  set  in  a  picture  rich  with  realistic  detail :  the 
dialect,  the  poverty,  the  types  of  character,  the 
humor  of  Yiddish  New  York.  Jacob  Adler 
plays  the  husband,  and  displays  a  vivid  imagina- 
tion for  details  calculated  to  bring  out  the  man's 
beseeching  bestiality :  his  filthy  manners,  his 
physical  ailments,  his  greed,  the  quickness  of 
his  anger  and  of  resulting  pacification.  Like 
most  of  the  realistic  plays  of  the  Ghetto,  Minna 
is  a  genuine  play  of  manners.  It  has  a  general 
idea,  and  presents  also  the  setting  and  charac- 
ters of  reality. 

The  Slaughter^  written  by  Gordin,  and  with  the 
main  masculine  character  taken  by  David  Kess- 
ler,  an  actor  of  occasionally  great  realistic 

143 


strength,  is  the  story  of  the  symbolic  murder  of 
a  fragile  young  girl  by  her  parents,  who  force 
her  to  marry  a  rich  man  who  has  all  the  vices  and 
whom  she  hates.  The  picture  of  the  poor  house, 
of  the  old  mother  and  father  and  half-witted  step- 
son with  whom  the  girl  is  unconsciously  in  love, 
in  its  faithfulness  to  life  is  typical  of  scenes  in 
many  of  these  plays.  It  is  rich  in  character  and 
mtlku  drawing.  There  is  another  scene  of  miser- 
able life  in  the  second  act.  The  girl  is  married 
and  living  with  the  rich  brute.  In  the  same 
house  is  his  mistress,  curt  and  cold,  and  two 
children  by  a  former  wife.  The  old  parents 
come  to  see  the  wife  ;  she  meets  them  with  the 
joy  of  starved  affection.  But  the  husband  enters 
and  changes  the  scene  to  one  of  hate  and  vio- 
lence. The  old  mother  tells  him,  however,  of 
the  heir  that  is  to  come.  Then  there  is  a  su- 
perb scene  of  naive  joy  in  the  midst  of  all  the 
sordid  gloom.  There  is  rapturous  delight  of  the 
old  people,  turbulent  triumph  of  the  husband,  and 
satisfaction  of  the  young  wife.  They  make  a 
holiday  of  it.  Wine  is  brought.  They  all  love 
one  another  for  the  time.  The  scene  is  repre- 
sentative of  the  way  the  poor  Jews  welcome 
their  offspring.  But  indescribable  violence  and 
abuse  follow,  and  the  wife  finally  kills  her 
husband,  in  a  scene  where  realism  riots  into 

144 


burlesque,  as  it  frequently  does  on  the  Yid- 
dish stage. 

But  for  absolute,  intense  realism  Gordin's 
Wild  Man,  unrelieved  by  a  problem  idea,  is  un- 
rivaled. An  idiot  boy  falls  in  love  with  his  step- 
mother without  knowing  what  love  is.  He  is 
abused  by  his  father  and  brother,  beaten  on 
account  of  his  ineptitudes.  His  sister  and  an- 
other brother  take  his  side,  and  the  two  camps 
revile  each  other  in  unmistakable  language.  The 
father  marries  again  ;  his  new  wife  is  a  heartless, 
faithless  woman,  and  she  and  the  daughter  quar- 
rel. After  repeated  scenes  of  brutality  to  the  idiot, 
the  daughter  is  driven  out  to  make  her  own  living. 
Adler's  portraiture  of  the  idiot  is  a  great  bit  of 
technical  acting.  The  poor  fellow  is  filled  with 
the  mysterious  wonderings  of  an  incapable 
mind.  His  shadow  terrifies  and  interests  him. 
He  philosophizes  about  life  and  death.  He  is 
puzzled  and  worried  by  everything  ;  the  slightest 
sound  preys  on  him.  Physically  alert,  his  senses 
serve  only  to  trouble  and  terrify  the  mind  which 
cannot  interpret  what  they  present.  The  bur- 
lesque which  Mr.  Adler  puts  into  the  part  was 
inserted  to  please  the  crowd,  but  increases  the 
horror  of  it,  as  when  Lear  went  mad ;  for  the 
Elizabethan  audiences  laughed,  and  had  their 
souls  wrung  at  the  same  time.  The  idiot  Indi- 
es 


crously  describes  his  growing  love.  In  pantomime 
he  tells  a  long  story.  It  is  evident,  even  without 
words,  that  he  is  constructing  a  complicated 
symbolism  to  express  what  he  does  not  know. 
He  falls  into  epilepsy  and  joins  stiffly  in  the 
riotous  dance.  The  play  ends  so  fearfully  that 
it  shades  into  mere  burlesque. 

This  horrible  element  in  so  many  of  these  plays 
marks  the  point  where  realism  passes  into  fan- 
tastic sensationalism.  The  facts  of  life  in  the 
Ghetto  are  in  themselves  unpleasant,  and  conse- 
quently it  is  natural  that  a  dramatic  exaggera- 
tion of  them  results  in  something  poignantly 
disagreeable.  The  intense  seriousness  of  the 
Russian  Jew,  which  accounts  for  what  is  excel- 
lent in  these  plays,  explains  also  the  rasping 
falseness  of  the  extreme  situations.  It  is  a  cur- 
ious fact  that  idiots,  often  introduced  in  the  Yid- 
dish plays,  amuse  the  Jewish  audience  as  much 
as  they  used  to  the  Elizabethan  mob. 

One  of  the  most  skillful  of  Gordin's  Yiddish 
adaptations  is  The  Oath,  founded  on  Hauptman's 
Fuhrmann  HenscheL  In  the  first  act  a  dying  peas- 
ant is  exhibited  on  the  stage.  In  Hauptman's 
play  it  is  a  woman  ;  in  Gordin's  it  is  a  man.  He  is 
racked  with  coughing.  A  servant  clatters  over 
the  floor  with  her  heavy  boots.  Another  servant 
feeds  the  sick  man  from  a  coarse  bowl  and  the 

146 


steward  works  at  the  household  accounts.  The 
dying  man's  wife,  and  their  little  boy,  enter 
and  it  is  apparent  that  something  has  been 
going  on  between  her  and  the  steward.  They 
and  the  servants  dine  realistically  and  coarsely 
and  neglect  the  dying  man.  When  they  leave, 
the  dying  man  teaches  his  son  how  to  say 
"  Kaddish  "  for  his  soul  when  he  is  dead.  When 
he  dies  he  makes  his  wife  swear  that  she  will 
never  marry  again.  In  the  second  act  she  is 
about  to  marry  the  steward,  and  the  Jewish 
customs  are  here  used,  as  is  often  the  case 
with  the  Yiddish  playwright,  to  intensify  the 
dramatic  effect  of  a  scene.  It  is  just  a  year  from 
the  time  of  her  husband's  death,  and  the  candles 
are  burning,  therefore,  on  the  table.  According 
to  the  orthodox  belief  the  soul  of  the  dead  is 
present  when  the  candles  burn.  The  little 
boy,  feeling  that  his  mother  is  about  to  marry 
again,  blows  out  the  candles.  The  mother, 
horror-stricken,  rushes  to  him  and  asks  him 
why  he  did  it.  I  did  not  want  my  father  to  see 
that  you  are  going  to  marry  again,"  says  the 
little  fellow.  It  was  an  affecting  scene  and  left 
few  dry  eyes  in  the  audience. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  third  act  the  wife  and 
servant  are  living  together,  married.  He  comes 
on  the  stage,  sleepy,  brutal,  calling  loudly  for  a 

147 


drink,  abuses  the  little  boy  and  quarrels  with  his 
wife ;  he  is  a  crude,  dishonorable,  coarse  brute. 
He  drives  away  a  faithful  servant  and  returns  to 
his  swinish  slumber.  An  old  couple,  the  woman 
being  the  sister  of  the  dead  man,  who  are 
always  torturing  the  wife  with  having  broken 
her  vow,  hint  to  her  that  her  new  husband  is 
too  attentive  to  the  maid-servant.  She  is  angry 
and  incredulous,  and  calls  the  maid  to  her,  but 
when  she  sees  her  in  the  doorway,  before  a  word 
is  spoken,  she  realizes  it  is  true,  and  sends  her 
away.  The  husband  enters  and  she  passionately 
taxes  him.  He  admits  it,  but  justifies  himself: 
he  is  young,  a  high-liver,  etc.,  why  shouldn't  he  ? 
Just  then  the  child  is  brought  in,  drowned  in  the 
river  nearby. 

In  the  beginning  of  the  fourth  and  last  act  the 
husband  again  appears  as  a  riotous,  jovial  fellow. 
He  has  played  a  joke  and  turned  a  driver  out 
of  his  cart,  and  he  nearly  splits  his  sides  with 
merriment.  Drunk,  he  admirably  sings  a  song 
and  dances.  His  wife  enters.  She  hears  her  vow 
repeated  by  the  winds,  by  the  trees,  everywhere. 
Her  dead  child  haunts  her.  Her  husband  has 
stolen  and  misspent  their  money.  She  talks  with 
the  faithful  servant  about  the  maid's  baby.  She 
wanders  about  at  night,  unable  to  sleep.  Her 
brute  husband  calls  to  her  from  the  house,  saying 

148 


he  is  afraid  to  sleep  alone.  Another  talk  ensues 
between  them.  He  asks  her  why  she  is  old  so 
soon.  She  burns  the  house  and  herself,  the 
neighbors  rush  in,  and  the  play  is  over. 

Some  of  the  more  striking  of  the  realistic  plays 
on  the  Ghetto  stage  have  been  partly  described, 
but  realism  in  the  details  of  character  and  setting 
appears  in  all  of  them,  even  in  comic  opera  and 
melodrama.  In  many  the  element  of  revolt,  even 
if  it  is  not  the  basis  of  the  play,  is  expressed  in 
occasional  dialogues.  Burlesque  runs  through 
them  all,  but  burlesque,  after  all,  is  a  comment 
on  the  facts  of  life.  And  all  these  points  are  em- 
phasized and  driven  home  by  sincere  and  forcible 
acting. 

Crude  in  form  as  these  plays  are,  and  unpleas- 
ant as  they  often  are  in  subject  and  in  the  life 
portrayed,  they  are  yet  refreshing  to  persons 
who  have  been  bored  by  the  empty  farce  and 
inane  cheerfulness  of  the  uptown  theatres. 

THE  HISTORY  OF  THE  YIDDISH 

STAGE 

The  Yiddish  stage,  founded  in  Roumania  in 
1876  by  Abraham  Goldfaden,  has  reached  its 
highest  development  in  the  city  of  New  York, 
where  there  are  seventy  or  eighty  professional 
actors;  not  far  from  a  dozen  playwrights,  of 

149 


whom  three  have  written  collectively  more  than 
three  hundred  plays;  dramas  on  almost  every 
subject,  produced  on  the  inspiration  of  various 
schools  of  dramatic  art ;  and  an  enormous  Rus- 
sian Jewish  colony,  which  fills  the  theatres  and 
creates  so  strong  a  demand  that  the  stage  re- 
sponds with  a  distinctive,  complete,  and  interest- 
ing popular  art. 

The  best  actor  now  in  the  Ghetto,  with  one 
exception,  was  in  the  original  company.  That 
exception,  with  the  help  of  a  realistic  playwright 
introduced  an  important  element  in  the  develop- 
ment of  the  stage.  With  the  lives  of  these  three 
men  the  history  of  the  Yiddish  stage  is  inti- 
mately connected.  The  first  actor  was  a  singer 
in  the  synagogue  of  Bucharest,  the  first  play- 
wright a  composer  of  Yiddish  songs.  The  foun- 
dation of  the  Yiddish  stage  might  therefore  be 
said  to  lie  in  the  Bucharest  synagogue  and  the 
popular  music-hall  performance. 

Zelig  Mogalesco,  the  best  comedian  in  the 
New  York  Ghetto,  has  seen,  altho  not  quite 
forty  years  of  age,  the  birth  of  the  Yiddish  stage, 
and  may  survive  its  death.  He  was  born  in 
Koloraush,  a  town  in  the  province  of  Bessarabia, 
near  Roumania.  His  father  was  a  poor  shop- 
keeper, and  Mogalesco  never  went  to  school. 
But  he  was  endowed  by  nature  with  a  remark- 


able  voice  and  ear,  and  composed  music  with 
easy  felicity.  The  population  of  the  town  was 
orthodox  Jewish,  and  consequently  no  theatre 
was  allowed.  It  was  therefore  in  the  synagogue 
that  the  musical  appetite  of  the  Jews  found  sat- 
isfaction. It  was  the  habit  of  the  poor  people  to 
hire  as  inexpensive  a  cantor  as  possible,  and  this 
cantor  might  very  well  be  ignorant  of  everything 
except  singing.  Yet  these  cantors  were  so  pop- 
ular that  the  famous  ones  travelled  from  town  to 
town,  in  much  the  same  way  that  the  visiting 
German  actor — Cast — does  to-day,  and  sometimes 
charged  admission  fees. 

When  Mogalesco  was  nine  years  old,  Nissy 
of  the  town  of  Bells,  the  most  famous  cantor  in 
the  south  of  Russia,  visited  Mogalesco's  town. 
The  boy's  friends  urged  him  to  visit  the  great 
man  and  display  his  voice.  Little  Mogalesco, 
with  his  mezzo-soprano,  went  to  the  inn,  and 
Nissy  was  astounded.  "My  dear  boy,"  he  said, 
*'go  home  and  fetch  your  parents."  With  them 
the  cantor  signed  a  contract  by  which  Zelig  was 
bound  to  him  as  a  kind  of  musical  apprentice  for 
three  years.  The  boy  was  to  receive  his  board 
and  clothing,  five  rubles,  the  first  year,  ten  the 
second,  and  fifteen  the  third — fifteen  dollars  for 
the  three  years. 

Soon  Mogalesco  became  widely  known  among 

151 


the  cantors  of  South  Russia.  In  six  months  he 
could  read  music  so  well  that  they  called  him 
"  Little  Zelig,  the  music-eater."  At  the  end  of 
the  first  year  the  leading  cantor  of  Bucharest, 
Israel  Kupfer,  who,  by  the  way,  has  been  cantor 
in  a  New  York  synagogue  of  the  east  side,  went 
to  Russia  to  secure  the  services  of  Mogalesco. 
To  avoid  the  penalties  of  a  broken  contract, 
Kupfer  hurried  with  little  Zelig  to  Roumania, 
and  the  boy  remained  in  Bucharest  for  several 
years.  At  the  age  of  fourteen  he  conducted  a 
choir  of  twenty  men  under  Kupfer.  He  also  be- 
came director  of  the  chorus  in  the  Gentile  opera. 
While  there  he  began  **to  burn,"  as  he  expressed 
it,  with  a  desire  to  go  on  the  stage,  but  the  Gen- 
tiles would  not  admit  the  talented  Jew. 

It  was  when  Mogalesco  was  about  twenty 
years  old  that  the  Yiddish  stage  was  born.  In 
1876  or  1877,  Abraham  Goldfaden  went  to  Bu- 
charest. This  man  had  formerly  been  a  success- 
ful merchant  in  Russia,  but  had  failed.  He  was 
a  poet,  and  to  make  a  living  he  called  that  art 
into  play.  In  Russia  he  had  written  many  Yid- 
dish songs,  set  them  to  music,  and  sung  them  in 
private.  In  the  society  in  which  he  lived  he 
deemed  that  beneath  his  dignity,  but  when  he 
lost  his  money  he  went  to  Bucharest  and  there 
on  the  stage  sang  his  own  poems,  the  music  for 

152 


which  he  took  from  many  sources.  He  became 
a  kind  of  music-hall  performer,  but  did  not 
long  remain  satisfied  with  this  modest  art.  His 
dissatisfaction  led  him  to  create  what  later  de- 
veloped into  the  present  Yiddish  theatre.  The 
Talmud  prohibited  the  stage,  but  at  the  time 
when  Goldfaden  was  casting  about  for  some- 
thing to  do  worthy  of  his  genius,  the  gymnasia 
were  thrown  open  to  the  Jews,  and  the  result 
was  a  more  tolerant  spirit.  Therefore,  Gold- 
faden decided  to  found  a  Yiddish  theatre. 
He  went  to  Kupfer,  the  cantor,  and  Kupfer  rec- 
ommended Mogalesco  as  an  actor  for  the  new 
company.  Goldfaden  saw  the  young  man  act, 
and  the  comedy  genius  of  Mogalesco  helped  in 
the  initial  idea  of  a  Yiddish  play.  Mogalesco 
at  first  refused  to  enter  into  the  scheme.  A  Yid- 
dish drama  seemed  too  narrow  to  him,  for  he 
aspired  to  the  Christian  stage.  But  when  Gold- 
faden offered  to  adopt  him  and  teach  him  the 
Gentile  languages  Mogalesco  agreed  and  became 
the  first  Yiddish  actor.  Other  singers  in  Kup- 
fer's  choir  also  joined  Goldfaden's  company. 

Thus  the  foundation  of  the  Yiddish  stage  lay 
in  the  Bucharest  synagogue.  The  beginnings, 
of  course,  were  small.  Several  other  actors  were 
secured,  among  them  Moses  Silbermann,  who  is 
still  acting  on  the  New  York  Ghetto  stage.  No 

153 


girls  could  at  that  time  be  obtained  for  the  stage, 
for  it  is  against  the  Taimudic  law  for  a  man  even 
to  hear  a  girl  sing,  and  men  consequently  played 
female  roles,  as  in  Elizabethan  times  in  Eng- 
land. The  first  play  that  Goldfaden  wrote  was 
The  Grandmother  and  her  Grandchild  \  the  second 
was  The  Sh^endrick  and  Mogalesco  played 
the  grandmother  in  one  and  a  little  spoiled  boy 
in  the  other.  His  success  in  both  was  enormous, 
and  he  still  enacts  on  the  Bowery  the  part  of  the 
little  boy.  The  first  performances  of  Goldfaden's 
play  were  given  in  Bucharest,  at  the  time  of  the 
Russian-Turkish  war,  and  the  city  was  filled 
with  Russian  contractors  and  workmen.  They 
overcrowded  the  theatre,  and  applauded  Moga- 
lesco to  the  echo.  From  that  time  the  success 
of  the  Yiddish  stage  was  assured.  Goldfaden 
tried  to  get  a  permit  to  act  in  Russia,  without 
success  at  first ;  but  he  played  in  Odessa  with- 
out a  license,  in  a  secret  way,  and  in  the  end  a 
permit  was  secured.  Other  Yiddish  companies 
sprang  up.  Girls  were  admitted  to  the  chorus, 
and  women  began  to  play  female  roles.  The 
first  woman  on  the  Yiddish  stage  was  a  girl  who 
is  now  Mrs.  Karb,  and  who  may  be  seen  in  the  Yid- 
dish company  at  present  in  the  People's  Theatre 
on  the  Bowery.  She  is  the  best  liked  of  all  the 
Ghetto's  actresses,  has  been  a  sweet  singer, 

154 


and  is  now  an  actress  of  considerable  distinction. 
In  Bucharest,  before  she  went  on  the  stage,  she 
was  a  tailor-girl,  and  used  to  sing  in  the  shop. 
She  appeared  in  1878  in  The  E^U  Eye,  and 
made  an  immediate  hit.  That  was  the  third 
Yiddish  play,  and,  in  the  absence  of  Goldfaden,  it 
was  written  by  the  prompter,  Joseph  Latteiner, 
who,  with  the  possible  exception  of  Professor 
Horowitz,  who  began  to  write  about  the  same 
time,  was  for  many  years  the  most  popular  play- 
wright in  the  New  York  Ghetto. 

In  1884  the  Yiddish  theatre  was  forbidden  in 
Russia.  It  was  supposed  by  the  Government  to 
be  a  hotbed  of  political  plots,  but  some  of  the 
Yiddish  actors  think  that  the  jealousy  of  Gentile 
actors  was  responsible  for  this  idea.  Two  years 
before  there  had  been  a  transmigration  of  Rus- 
sian and  Roumanian  Jews  to  America  on  a  large 
scale.  Therefore  the  players  banished  from 
Russia  had  a  refuge  and  an  audience  in  New 
York.  In  1884  the  first  Yiddish  company  came 
to  this  country.  It  was  not  Goldfaden's  or  Mo- 
galesco's  company,  but  one  formed  after  them. 
In  it  were  actors  who  still  act  in  New  York — 
Moses  Heine,  Moses  Silbermann,  Mrs.  Karb,  and 
Latteiner  the  playwright. 

The  first  Yiddish  theatre  was  called  the  Ori- 
ental.   It  was  a  music-hall  on  the  Bowery,  trans- 

155 


formed  for  the  purpose.  A  year  later  Mogalesco, 
Kessler,  Professor  Horowitz,  and  their  company 
came  to  New  York  and  opened  the  Roumania 
Theatre.  From  that  time  they  changed  theatres 
frequently.  It  is  worthy  of  note  that  with  one 
exception  the  actors  identified  with  the  begin- 
nings of  the  Yiddish  stage  are  still  the  best. 

That  exception  is  Jacob  Adler,  who,  not  count- 
ing Mogalesco,  is  the  best  actor  in  the  Ghetto. 
They  are  both  character  actors,  but  Mogalesco 
is  essentially  a  comedian,  while  Adler  plays 
roles  ranging  from  burlesque  to  tragedy.  Moga- 
lesco is  a  natural  genius,  with  a  spontaneity 
superior  to  that  of  Adler,  but  he  has  no  general 
education  nor  intellectual  life.  But  the  forcible 
Adler,  a  man  of  great  energy,  a  fighter,  is  filled 
with  one  great  idea,  which  is  almost  a  passion 
with  him,  and  which  has  marked  a  development 
in  the  Yiddish  theatre.  To  be  natural,  to  be 
real,  to  express  the  actual  life  of  the  people,  with 
serious  intent,  is  what  Jacob  Adler  stands  for. 
Up  to  the  time  when  he  appeared  on  the  scene 
in  New  York  there  had  been  no  serious  plays 
acted  on  the  Yiddish  stage.  Comic  opera,  lurid 
melodrama,  adaptations  and  translations,  histori- 
cal plays  representing  the  traditions  of  the  Jews, 
were  exclusively  the  thing.  Through  the  acting, 
indeed,  which  on  the  Yiddish  stage  is  constantly 

156 


animated  by  the  desire  for  sincerity  and  natural- 
ness, the  real  life  of  the  people  was  constantly 
suggested  in  some  part  of  the  play.  When  Mo- 
galesco  took  a  comic  part,  he  would  interpolate 
phrases  and  actions,  suggesting  that  life,  which 
he  instinctively  and  spontaneously  knew,  and  it 
was  so  with  the  other  actors  also.  But  this  ele- 
ment was  accidental  and  fragmentary  previous 
to  the  coming  of  Jacob  Adler. 

Until  then  Latteiner  and  Professor  Horowitz, 
the  authors  of  the  first  historical  plays  of  the 
Yiddish  stage,  and  still  the  most  popular  play- 
wrights in  the  Ghetto,  held  almost  undisputed 
sway. 

Joseph  Latteiner,  of  whom  brief  mention  has 
already  been  made,  represents  thoroughly  the 
strong  commercial  spirit  of  the  Yiddish  stage. 
He  writes  with  but  one  thought,  to  please  the 
mass  of  the  people,  writes  "easy  plays,"  to  quote 
his  own  words.  His  plays,  therefore,  are  the 
very  spirit  of  formlessness — burlesque,  popularly 
vulgar  jokes,  flat  heroism  combined  about  the 
flimsiest  dramatic  structure.  He  is  the  type  of 
the  business  man  of  the  Ghetto.  Altho  success- 
ful, he  lives  in  an  unpleasant  tenement,  and 
seems  much  poorer  than  he  really  is.  He  has  an 
unemphatic,  conciliatory  manner  of  talking,  and 
everything  he  says  is  discouragingly  practical. 

157 


He  is  a  Roumanian  Jew,  forty-six  years  of  age. 
His  parents  intended  him  for  a  rabbi,  but  he  was 
too  poor  to  reach  the  goal,  altho  he  learned 
several  languages.  These  afterwards  stood  him 
in  good  stead,  for  he  often  translates  and  adapts 
plays  for  the  Bowery  stage.  Unable  to  be  a 
rabbi,  Latteiner  cast  about  for  a  means  of  making 
his  living.  As  a  boy  he  was  not  interested  in  the 
stage,  but  one  day  he  saw  a  German  play  in  one 
act  and  thought  he  could  adapt  it  with  music  to 
the  Yiddish  stage.  It  was  successful,  and  Lat- 
teiner, as  he  put  it,  "discovered  himself."  He 
has  since  written  over  a  hundred  plays,  and  is 
engaged  by  the  company  at  the  Thalia  Theatre 
as  the  regular  playwright.  He  calls  himself 
%olksdichterf  and  maintains  that  his  plays  improve 
with  the  taste  of  the  people,  but  this  statement 
is  open  to  considerable  doubt. 

In  speaking  of  the  popular  playwright,  and  the 
purely  commercial  character  and  consequent 
formlessness  of  the  plays  before  the  appearance 
of  Adler,  important  mention  should  be  made  of 
Boris  Thomashevsky,  already  briefly  referred  to 
as  the  idol  of  the  Jewish  matinee  girls.  He  is 
the  most  popular  actor  on  the  Yiddish  stage, 
and  for  him  Latteiner  particularly  writes.  Thom- 
ashevsky is  a  large  fat  man,  with  expression- 
less features  and  curly  black  hair,  which  he 

158 


arranges  in  leonine  forms.  He  generally  ap- 
pears as  the  hero,  and  is  a  successful  tho  a 
rather  listless  barnstormer.  The  more  intel- 
ligent of  his  audience  are  inclined  to  smile  at 
Mr.  Thomashevsky's  talent  in  romantic  parts,  of 
the  reality  of  which,  however,  he,  with  a  large 
section  of  the  community,  is  very  firmly  con- 
vinced. In  fairness,  however,  it  should  be  said 
that  when  Mr.  Thomashevsky  occasionally  leaves 
the  role  of  hero  for  an  unsentimental  character, 
particularly  one  which  expresses  supercilious 
superiority,  he  is  excellent.  As  time  goes  on  he 
will  probably  take  less  and  less  the  romantic  lead 
and  grow  more  and  more  satisfactory.  He  is 
the  youngest  of  the  prominent  actors  of  the 
Bowery.  Before  the  coming  of  Heine's  company 
in  1884,  he  was  a  pretty  little  boy  in  the  Ghetto, 
who  used  to  play  female  roles  in  amateur  the- 
atricals. But  when  the  professionals  came  he 
was  eclipsed,  and  went  out  of  sight  for  some 
time.  He  grew  to  be  a  handsome  man,  how- 
ever; his  voice  changed,  and,  with  the  help  of  a 
very  different  man,  Jacob  Adler,  Thomashevsky 
found  an  important  place  on  the  Yiddish  stage. 
He  and  Adler  are  now  the  leading  actors  of  the 
People's  Theatre,  but  they  never  appear  to- 
gether, Thomashevsky  being  the  main  interpre- 
ter of  the  plays  which  appeal  distinctively  to  the 

159 


rabble,  and  Adler  of  those  which  form  the  really- 
original  Yiddish  drama  of  a  serious  nature. 

Jacob  Adler  was  born  in  Odessa,  Russia,  in 
1855,  of  middle-class  parents.  He  went  to  the 
pubHc  school,  but  was  very  slow  to  learn,  and 
was  treated  roughly  by  his  teachers,  whose  fav- 
orite weapon  was  a  ruler  of  thorns.  School, 
therefore,  as  he  says,  **made  a  bad  impression  " 
on  him,  and  he  left  it  for  business,  but  got  along 
equally  badly  there,  not  being  able  to  brook  the 
brutally  expressed  authority  of  his  masters.  But 
while  he  passed  rapidly  from  one  firm  to  another, 
through  the  kindness  of  a  wealthy  uncle  he  was 
able  to  cut  a  swell  figure  in  Odessa,  and  became 
a  dandy  and  something  of  a  lady-killer.  He  was 
then  only  eighteen,  but  the  serious  ideas  which 
at  a  later  time  he  strenuously  sought  to  bring 
into  prominence  in  New  York  already  began  to 
assert  themselves.  Then  there  was  no  Yiddish 
theatre,  but  of  the  Gentile  Russian  theatre  in 
Odessa  he  was  very  fond.  The  serious  realistic 
Russian  play  was  what  particularly  took  his  fancy. 
The  Russian  tragedians  Kozelski  and  Milos- 
lowski  especially  helped  to  form  his  taste,  and 
he  soon  became  a  critic  well  known  in  the  gal- 
leries. It  was  the  habit  of  Russian  audiences  to 
express  their  ideas  and  impressions  on  the  spot. 
The  galleries  were  divided  into  parties,  with  op- 

160 


posing  artistic  principles.  One  party  hissed 
while  the  other  applauded,  and  then  and  there 
they  held  debates,  between  the  acts  and  even 
during  the  performance.  Adlersoon  became  one 
of  the  fiercest  leaders  of  such  a  party  that  Odessa 
had  ever  known.  He  stood  for  realism,  for  the 
direct  expression  of  the  life  of  the  people.  All 
else  he  hissed  down,  and  did  it  so  effectively  that 
the  actors  tried  to  conciliate  him.  One  season 
two  actresses  of  talent,  but  of  different  schools, 
were  playing  in  Odessa — Glebowa,  whom  Adler 
supported  because  of  her  naturalness,  and  Koz- 
lowski,  whose  style  was  affected  and  artificial 
from  Adler's  point  of  view.  After  the  strife  be- 
tween the  rival  parties  had  waged  for  some  time 
very  fiercely,  one  night  Kozlowski  sent  for  Adler, 
and  asked  him  what  she  could  do  to  get  the 
great  critic  to  join  her  party.  Adler  replied  that 
so  long  as  Glebowa  played  with  such  wonderful 
naturalness  he  should  remain  faithful  to  her 
colors,  and  advised  Kozlowski,  who  was  a  kind 
of  Russian  Bernhardt,  to  change  her  style. 

Adler's  lack  of  education  always  weighed  on 
his  spirit,  and  his  high  ideals  of  the  stage  seemed 
to  shut  that  art  away  from  him.  Yet  his  friends 
who  heard  him  recite  the  speeches  of  his  favorites, 
which  he  easily  remembered,  told  him  he  had 
talent.      I  wanted  to  believe  them,"  Adler  said, 

i6i 


"but  I  always  thought  that  the  actor  ought  to 
know  everything  in  order  to  interpret  humanity." 

But  just  about  that  time,  when  Adler  was 
twenty-three  years  old,  he  heard  that  a  theatre 
had  been  started  in  Roumania  by  a  Russian  Jew 
named  Goldfaden,  and  that  the  actors  spoke 
Yiddish. 

I  was  astonished,"  he  said.  "How  could 
they  act  a  play  in  a  language  without  literature, 
in  the  jargon  of  our  race,  and  who  could  be  the 
actors  ? " 

Soon  Adler  heard  that  the  Jewish  singers  of 
hymns  who  sometimes  visited  Odessa,  and  who 
moved  him  so,  because  "they  sang  so  pitifully," 
were  the  actors  of  the  first  Yiddish  company, 
and  his  astonishment  grew.  In  1879  Goldfaden 
went  to  Odessa  with  his  company,  and  his 
theatre  was  crowded  with  Gentiles  as  well  as 
Jews  ;  and  Adler  saw  with  his  eyes  what  he  had 
hardly  believed  possible — a  Jewish  company  in  a 
Yiddish  play.  The  plays,  however,  seemed  to 
Adler  very  poor — mainly  light  opera  with  vaude- 
ville accompaniment — and  the  acting  was  also 
poor ;  but  Israel  Rosenberg,  whom  Adler  de- 
scribes as  a  long-faced  Jew  with  protruding 
teeth,  enormous  eyes,  and  a  mouth  as  wide  as  a 
saucer,  amused  Adler  with  the  wit  which  he  in- 
terpolated as  he  acted.     Rosenberg,  "more 

162 


ignorant  than  I,"  says  Adler,  "was  yet  very  suc- 
cessful." The  two  became  intimate,  and  Rosen- 
berg and  Fraulein  Oberlander  urged  Adler  to  go 
on  the  stage  ;  Rosenberg  because  Adler  at  that 
time  was  comparatively  rich,  and  the  Fraulein 
because  she  loved  (and  afterwards  married)  the 
vigorous  young  man  from  Odessa.  And  Adler 
felt  his  education  to  be  superior  to  that  of  these 
successful  actors,  and  decided  to  make  the  ex- 
periment. To  choose  the  stage,  however,  was 
to  choose  poverty,  as  he  had  begun  to  succeed  in 
business,  but  he  did  not  hesitate  and,  leaving  his 
friends  and  family,  he  went  on  a  tour  with  the 
company. 

In  the  first  performance  he  was  so  frightened 
that  he  did  not  hear  his  own  words.  He  lost  all 
his  critical  faculty,  and  played  merely  instinc- 
tively. It  was  a  long  time  before  he  acted  better 
than  the  average,  which  was  at  that  time  very 
low ;  but,  finally,  in  a  small  town  named  Eliza- 
betgrad,  Adler  learned  his  lesson.  A  critic 
visited  the  theatre  every  night,  and  wrote  long 
articles  upon  it,  but  Adler  never  found  his  name 
mentioned  therein.  He  used  to  get  up  in  the 
morning  very  early,  before  any  one  else,  to  buy 
the  newspaper,  but  was  always  chagrined  to  find 
that  the  great  man  had  overlooked  him.  At  first 
he  thought  that  the  critic  must  have  a  personal 

163 


spite  against  him,  then  that  he  was  not  noticed 
because  he  had  only  small  roles.  At  last  he  was 
cast  for  a  very  long  and  emotional  role.  He 
thought  that  this  part  would  surely  fetch  the 
critic,  and  the  next  morning  eagerly  bought  a 
paper,  but  there  was  no  criticism  of  the  play  at 
all.  Rosenberg  went  to  the  critic  and  asked 
the  reason. 

Adler  spoiled  the  whole  thing,"  was  the  reply. 

His  acting  was  unnatural  and  loud.  I  advise 
him  to  leave  the  stage." 

"Then,"  said  Adler,  "I  began  to  think.  I  cut 
my  hair,  which  I  had  allowed  to  grow  long  after 
the  fashion  of  actors,  and  was  at  first  much  dis- 
couraged. But  thereafter  I  studied  every  role 
with  great  care,  and  read  the  classic  plays,  and 
never  played  a  part  until  I  understood  it.  Before 
that  it  was  play  with  me  ;  but  after  that  it  was 
serious  work." 

For  a  number  of  years  Adler  continued  to  act 
in  the  cities  of  Russia,  and  became  the  head  of  a 
company.  In  1883,  when  Russia  was  closed  to 
the  Jewish  stage,  Adler  took  his  company  to 
London,  where  he  nearly  starved.  There  was 
no  Ghetto  there,  and  the  company  gave  occa- 
sional performances  at  various  Yiddish  clubs 
scattered  through  the  city.  Adler  lost  all  his 
money,  and  got  into  debt.    His  wife  and  child 

164 


died,  and  at  one  time  in  despair  he  thought  of 
leaving  the  stage.  But  it  was  too  late  to  go 
back  to  Odessa,  for  he  had  once  for  all  cut  him- 
self off  from  his  family  and  friends.  He  was 
falsely  informed  by  a  Jev/  who  had  been  to 
America  that  to  succeed  there  he  would  have 
to  sing,  dance,  and  speak  German.  So  he 
stayed  some  time  longer  in  London.  The  Roths- 
childs, Dr.  Felix  Adler,  and  others,  took  an  in- 
terest in  him,  and  told  him  that  as  the  Jewish 
theatre  could  have  no  future,  since  Yiddish  must 
ultimately  be  forgotten,  he  had  better  give  it  up. 

It  was  in  1887  that  Adler  came  to  New  York, 
where  he  found  two  Yiddish  companies  already 
well  started.  To  avoid  conflict  with  them,  he 
went  to  Chicago,  where,  however,  a  Yiddish 
theatre  could  get  no  foothold.  Some  rich  Chi- 
cago people  tried  to  induce  Adler  to  learn  Eng- 
lish and  go  on  the  American  stage ;  but  Adler, 
always  distrustful  of  his  education  and  ability  to 
learn,  declined  their  offers,  now  much  to  his 
regret.  He  returned  to  New  York,  where  Mo- 
galesco  and  Kessler  urged  him  to  stay,  but  the 
Ghetto  actors  in  general  were  hostile  to  him,  and 
he  went  back  to  London.  The  next  year,  how- 
ever, he  was  visited  by  four  of  the  managers  of 
the  New  York  Ghetto  companies  (among  them 
Mogalesco),  vying  with  one  another  to  secure 

165 


Adler,  whose  reputation  in  the  Jewish  commu- 
nity was  rapidly  growing.  He  went  back  to 
New  York  in  1889,  where  he  appeared  first  at 
the  Germania  Theatre.  He  was  advertised  in 
advance  as  a  Salvini,  a  Barrett,  a  Booth,  as  all 
stars  combined.  When  he  found  how  extrava- 
gantly he  had  been  announced  he  was  angry, 
and  wanted  to  go  back  to  London,  feeling  that 
it  was  impossible  to  live  up  to  what  his  foolish 
managers  had  led  the  people  to  expect.  He 
consented  to  stay,  but  refused  to  appear  in 
Uriel  Acosta  for  which  he  was  billed,  prefer- 
ring to  begin  in  comedy,  in  order  not  to  appear 
to  compete  with  the  reputation  of  Salvini.  The 
play,  which  was  called  The  Ragpicker,  can  still 
be  seen  in  the  Ghetto.  In  it  Adler  tried  to 
score  as  a  character  actor.  But  the  people,  ex- 
pecting a  tragedy,  took  The  Ragpicker  seriously, 
and  did  not  laugh  at  all.  The  play  fell  flat, 
and  the  managers  rushed  before  the  curtain 
and  told  the  audience  that  Adler  was  a  poor 
actor,  and  that  they  had  been  deceived  in  him. 
Through  the  influence  of  the  management,  the 
whole  company  treated  him  with  coldness  and 
contempt,  except  the  wife  of  one  of  the  directors. 
She  is  now  Mrs.  Adler,  and  is  one  of  the  capable 
serious  actresses  at  present  at  the  People's 
Theatre.     Finally,  the   lease   of  the  theatre 

166 


passed  into  Adler's  hands,  and  he  dismissed  the 
whole  company  and  formed  a  new  one.  Soon 
after  began  the  struggle  which  brought  about 
the  latest  development  of  the  Yiddish  stage. 

For  some  time  Adler  was  successful,  but  he 
grew  more  and  more  dissatisfied  with  his  reper- 
tory. He  could  find  no  plays  which  seriously 
portrayed  the  life  of  the  people  or  contained  any 
serious  ideas.  Only  the  translated  plays  were 
good  from  his  point  of  view;  he  wished  some- 
thing original,  and  looked  about  for  a  playwright. 
One  night  in  a  restaurant  he  was  introduced  to 
Jacob  Gordin,  who  afterwards  wrote  the  greater 
part  of  the  only  serious  original  Yiddish  plays 
which  exist. 

Gordin  at  that  time  had  written  no  plays,  but 
he  was  a  man  of  varied  literary  activity,  of  a 
rarely  good  education,  a  thorough  Russian 
schooling,  and  of  uncommon  intelligence  and 
strength  of  character.  He  is  Russian  in  appear- 
ance, a  large  broad-headed  man  with  thick  black 
hair  and  beard.  As  he  told  me  in  his  little  home 
in  Brooklyn,  the  history  of  his  life,  he  omitted 
all  picturesque  details,  and  emphasized  only  his 
intellectual  development.  He  was  born  in  the 
same  town  as  Gogol,  Ubigovrod  in  southern 
Russia,  of  rich  parents.  As  a  boy  he  frequented 
the  theatre,  and  like  Adler,  became  a  local  critic 

167 


and  hissed  down  what  he  did  not  approve.  Like 
Adler,  too,  he  was  often  carried  off  to  the  poHce 
station  and  fined.  He  married  early,  became  a 
school-teacher  and  then  a  journalist  (in  Russian), 
writing  every  sort  of  article,  except  political,  and 
often  sketches  and  short  stories  for  newspapers 
and  periodicals  in  Odessa,  where  he  finally  con- 
trolled a  newspaper — the  Odesss.kis.no'vosti*  He 
was  a  great  admirer  of  Tolstoi,  and  desiring  to 
live  on  a  farm  to  put  into  practice  the  Count's 
ideas,  he  came  to  America  in  1891,  and  nearly 
starved.  He  became  an  editor  of  a  Russian 
newspaper  in  New  York  and  contributed  to 
other  journals.  In  his  own  paper  he  wrote  vio- 
lent articles  against  the  Russian  Government,  as 
well  as  literary  sketches.  In  Russia,  Gordin  had 
never  been  in  a  Yiddish  theatre,  and  when  he 
met  Adler  in  the  New  York  restaurant  he  knew 
little  of  the  conventional  Yiddish  play.  So  he 
wrote  his  first  play  in  a  fresh  spirit,  with  only 
the  character  of  the  people  and  his  own  ideals 
to  work  from.  Stberta,  produced  in  1892,  was  a 
success  with  the  critics  and  actors,  and  may 
fairly  be  called  the  first  original  Yiddish  play  of 
the  better  type. 

The  play  struck  a  new  note.  It  fell  into  line 
with  the  Russian  spirit  of  realism  now  so  marked 
in  intellectual  circles  in  the  Ghetto.    Life  and 

168 


V 


types  are  what  Gordin  tried  for,  and  Jacob  Adler 
had  found  his  playwright.  Since  then  Gordin 
has  written  about  fifty  plays,  some  of  which  have 
been  successful,  and  many  have  been 
marked  by  literary  and  dramatic  power. 
Some  of  the  better  ones  are  Siberia, 
the  Je^wish  King  Lear,  The  Wild  Man,  The 
Je%ish  Priest,  Solomon  Kaus,  The 
Slaughter,  and  the  Jeli?ish  Queen 
Lear*  Jacob  Adler  has  been  until 
recently  his  chief  interpreter,  altho 
Mogalesco,  Kessler,  and  Thomas- 
hevsky  take  his  plays. 

For  several  years  an  actress, 
Mrs.  Liptzen,  was  the  main  inter- 
preter of  Gordin's  plays.    She  is 
one  of  the  most  individual,  if  not 
one  of  the  most  skillful,  actresses  i 
on  the  stage  of  New  York's  Ghet-  I 
to,  and  is  sometimes  spoken  of  in 
the  quarter  as  the  Yiddish  Duse. 
She  is  the  only  actress  of  the  east 
side  who  is  thus  compared,  by  a 
sub-title,  with  a  famous  Gentile 
artist,  altho  in  many  directions 
there  is  a  great  tendency  in  the 
Ghetto  to  adopt  foreign  names  and 
ideas.     As  a  matter  of  fact,  her  art  is 

169 


/ 


!  f 


MADAM  LIPTZEN 


exceedingly  limited,  but  she  has  the  unusual  dis- 
tinction of  appearing  only  in  the  best  plays, 
steadfastly  refusing  to  take  part  in  performances 
which  she  deems  to  be  dramatically  unworthy. 
She  consequently  appears  very  seldom,  usually 
only  in  connection  with  the  production  of  a  new 
play  by  Jacob  Gordin,  who  at  present  writes 
many  of  his  plays  with  the  Yiddish  Duse  "  in 
mind. 

Mrs.  Liptzen  was  born  in  Zitomir,  South  Rus- 
sia, and  was  interested  exclusively  in  the  stage 
from  her  childhood.  The  founder  of  the  Yiddish 
stage,  Abraham  Goldfaden,  and  Jacob  Adler, 
played  in  her  town  for  a  few  nights  when  she 
was  about  eighteen  years  old.  Her  parents 
were  orthodox  Jews,  and  to  go  to  the  theatre 
she  was  forced  to  resort  to  subterfuge.  She  be- 
came acquainted  with  Goldfaden  and  Adler,  and 
ran  away  from  home  in  order  to  accompany  them 
as  an  actress.  At  first  she  sang  and  acted  in 
such  popular  operatic  plays  as  T)er  Schmendriky 
and  continued  for  three  years  in  Russia,  until  the 
Yiddish  theatre  was  forbidden  there.  Then  she 
went  with  a  new  company  to  Berlin,  where  the 
whole  aggregation  nearly  starved.  They  were 
reduced  to  selling  all  their  stage  properties,  the 
proceeds  of  which  were  made  away  with  by  a 
dishonest  agent.    During  the  time  their  per- 

170 


formances  in  Berlin  continued  Mrs.  Liptzen  re- 
ceived, it  is  said,  the  sum  of  ten  pfennige  (two 
and  one-half  cents)  a  day,  on  which  sh€  lived. 
She  paid  five  pfennige  for  lodging  and  five  pfen- 
nige for  bread  and  coffee ;  and  there  is  left  in  her 
now  a  correspondingly  amazing  impression  of 
the  cheapness  with  which  she  could  live  in  Ger- 
many in  those  days. 

Jacob  Adler  was  at  that  time  in  London  with 
a  company,  eking  out  a  miserable  existence. 
He  wrote  to  Mrs.  Liptzen's  husband,  an  invalid 
in  Odessa,  to  send  his  wife  to  London  to  play  in 
his  company.  About  1886  Mrs.  Liptzen  went  to 
London  and  played  in  Esther  <von  Engedi  (the  Yid- 
dish OthsUo),  Leah  the  Forsaken^  Rachel,  The  Jews^ 
etc.  In  London  she  str.yed  three  years,  when, 
the  theatre  burning  down,  she  went  with  Adler 
to  Chicago.  They  tried  to  find  a  place  in  New 
York,  but  the  Yiddish  company,  with  Kessler 
and  Mogalesco  at  its  head,  already  in  New 
York,  froze  them  out,  and  they  tried  to  get  a 
foothold  in  Chicago.  A  little  later  Mrs.  Liptzen 
left  Chicago  for  New  York,  called  by  the  Yiddish 
company  there  to  play  leading  parts.  She  be- 
gan in  New  York  with  Leah  the  Forsaken,  and  re- 
ceived only  $10  for  the  first  three  performances. 
It  is  said  that  she  now  receives  from  $100  to 
$200  for  every  performance,  a  fact  indicating  not 

171 


only  her  growth  in  popularity  but  also  the  great 
financial  success  of  the  Yiddish  theatres  in  New- 
York. 

Twelve  years  ago  Mrs.  Liptzen  retired  for  a 
time  from  the  stage,  the  reason  being  that  there 
were  no  new  plays  in  which  she  desired  to  ap- 
pear, since  the  demand  was  entirely  supplied  by 
the  romantic  and  historical  operatic  playwrights, 
Prof.  Horowitz  and  Mr.  Latteiner. 

It  was  not  until  Jacob  Gordin  came  into 
prominence  as  a  realistic  playwright,  that  Mrs. 
Liptzen  came  out  of  her  dignified  retirement. 
Jacob  Adler  was  the  first  to  play  Gordin's 
pieces ;  but  he  played  many  others,  too,  trying 
in  a  practical  way  gradually  to  make  the  cause 
of  realism  triumphant.  Mrs.  Liptzen,  however, 
made  no  compromise,  and  kept  quiet  until  she 
was  able  to  get  the  plays  she  wanted,  which 
soon  were  written  by  Gordin. 

Mrs.  Liptzen's  first  success  with  a  Gordin 
play  was  in  Med^a,  for  which  Gordin  received,  it 
is  said,  the  enormous  sum  of  $85 — having  sold 
plays  previous  to  that  time  for  the  well-fixed 
price  of  $35.  Medea's  Youth,  v/ritten  by  Gordin 
for  Mrs.  Liptzen,  was  a  failure,  altho  the  author 
thought  so  well  of  it  as  a  literary  production 
that  he  had  it  translated  into  English.  The 
next  of  Mrs.  Liptzen's  successes  was  the  Jewish 

172 


Queen  Lear,  for  which  Gordin  received  $200 — an 
enormous  sum  for  a  Yiddish  playwright  in  those 
days.  The  Slaughter  was  produced  two  years  ago, 
and  last  year  Mrs.  Liptzen  appeared  in  Gordin's 
The  Oath,  a  Yiddish  production  of  Fuhrmann  Hen- 
scheL  Of  late  Mr.  Gordin's  plays  have  been  pro- 
duced by  a  younger  actress  of  more  varied  talent 
than  Mrs.  Liptzen — Mrs.  Bertha  Kalisch,  on  the 
whole  a  much  worthier  interpreter  than  the 
older  woman. 

It  is  Adler,  however,  who  has  been  the  bellig- 
erent promoter  of  the  original  and  serious  Yid- 
dish drama.  In  1893  he  tried  to  introduce  Gor- 
din's plays  and  the  new  spirit  of  realism  and 
literature  into  his  company  at  the  Windsor 
Theatre.  But  the  old  style  is  still  strong  in  pop- 
ular affection,  and  Adler's  company  rebelled. 
Whereupon  Adler  went  to  Russia  to  form  a  new 
company  which  would  be  more  amenable  to  his 
ideas.  He  came  back  with  the  new  troupe,  and 
ordered  a  new  play  from  Gordin,  who  produced 
The  Jewish  King  Lear,  At  the  first  reading 
of  the  play  the  company  protested,  but  Adler 
begged  for  a  trial,  telling  them  that  they  did  not 
know  what  a  good  play  was.  The  play  proved 
a  great  and  deserved  success,  and  is  now  fre- 
quently repeated.  It  contains  several  scenes  of 
great  power,  and  portrays  with  faithful  art  the 

173 


life  of  the  Russian  Jew.  In  1894  Adler  tried  the 
experiment  of  leasing  a  small  theatre,  the  Rou- 
mania,  in  which  nothing  but  plays  which  ex- 
pressed his  ideas  should  be  presented.  A  num- 
ber of  Gordin's  plays  were  given,  but  the  theatre 
had  much  the  same  fate  that  would  befall  a 
theatre  up  town  which  should  play  only  the 
ideally  best.  It  failed  completely.  After  that  both 
Adler  and  Gordin  were  compelled  to  compromise. 
Adler  is  now  associated  with  a  company  which 
presents  every  kind  of  play  known  to  the  Ghetto, 
and  Gordin  has  had  to  introduce  horseplay  and 
occasional  vaudeville  and  comic  opera  into  his 
plays.  Even  the  best  of  the  Yiddish  plays  con- 
tain these  excrescences. 

But  both  Adler  and  Gordin,  while  remaining 
practical  men,  with  an  eye  to  the  box-office  re- 
ceipts, are  working  to  eliminate  more  and  more 
what  is  distasteful  to  them  and  impertinent  to 
art.  A  year  ago  last  autumn  Gordin  succeeded 
in  having  his  latest  play,  The  Slaughter,  per- 
formed without  any  vaudeville  accompaniment. 
He  deemed  it  a  triumph,  particularly  as  it  was 
successful,  and  felt  a  debt  of  gratitude  to  Mrs. 
Liptzen,  who  produced  the  play  without  insisting 
on  unworthy  interpolations. 

Gordin  now  hopes  that  the  days  of  compro- 
mise for  him  are  past,  and  Adler  expects  to  secure, 

174 


some  day,  a  theatre  in  which  he  can  successfully 
produce  only  the  serious  plays  of  Jewish  life. 
But  both  these  men  are  pessimistic  about  the 
future  of  dramatic  art  in  the  Ghetto.  They  feel 
not  only  the  weight  of  the  commerical  spirit,  but 
also  the  imminent  death  of  their  stage.  For  the 
Jews  of  the  Ghetto  as  they  become  American- 
ized are  liable  to  lose  their  instinctive  Yiddish, 
and  then  there  will  be  no  more  drama  in  that 
tongue.  The  only  Yiddish  stage,  worthy  of  the 
name,  in  the  world  will  probably  soon  be  no  more. 
Jacob  Adler  consequently  regrets  that  his  *^jar- 
gon"  confines  him  to  the  Bowery  stage,  and 
Jacob  Gordin  longs  to  have  his  plays  translated 
and  produced  on  the  English  stage. 

Mogalesco,  the  actor,  who  has,  perhaps,  the 
greatest  talent  of  them  all,  whose  dramatic  art 
was  born  with  the  Yiddish  stage,  and  who  is 
equally  happy  in  a  comedietta  by  Latteiner  or  a 
character-play  by  Gordin,  is,  like  the  true  actor, 
without  ideas,  but  always  felicitous  in  interpre- 
tation, and  enthusiastically  loved  by  the  Jewish 
play-goers.  He  and  Adler,  if  they  had  been  for- 
tunate enough  to  have  received  a  training  con- 
sistently good,  and  had  acted  in  a  language  of 
wider  appeal,  would  easily  have  taken  their 
places  among  those  artistically  honored  by  the 
world.    Even  as  it  is  they  have,  with  Gordin, 

175 


with  Kessler,  with  Mrs.  Liptzen,  Mrs.  Kalisch 
and  the  rest,  the  distinction  of  being  prominent 
figures  in  the  short  career  of  the  Yiddish  stage, 
which,  founded  by  Goldfaden  in  1876,  in  Rou- 
mania,  has  received  to-day,  in  New  York,  its 
highest  and  almost  exclusive  development. 


176 


ChsLpter  Six 


Yiddish  newspapers  have,  as  compared  with 
their  contemporaries  in  the  English  language, 
the  strong  interest  of  great  freedom  of  expres- 
sion. They  are  controlled  rather  by  passion 
than  by  capital.  It  is  theirjoy  to  pounce  on 
controlling  wealth,  and  to  take  the  side  of  the 
laborer  against  the  employer.  A  large  propor- 
tion of  the  articles  are  signed,  a  custom  in  strik- 
ing contrast  with  that  of  the  American  news- 
paper; the  prevalence  of  the  unsigned  article  in 
the  latter  is  held  by  the  Yiddish  journals  to 
illustrate  the  employer's  tendency  to  arrogate 
everything  to  himself,  and  to  make  the  paper  a 
mere  organ  of  his  own  policy  and  opinions.  The 
remark  of  one  of  the  Jewish  editors,  that  the 

Yiddish  newspaper's  freedom  of  expression  is 
limited  by  the  Penal  Code  alone,"  has  its  relative 
truth.  It  is,  of  course,  equally  true  that  the  new 
freedom  of  the  Jews,  who  in  Russia  had  no  journal 
in  the  common  Yiddish,  runs  in  these  New  York 
papers  into  an  emotional  extreme,  a  license 

177 


which  is  apt  to  distort  the  news  and  to  give  over 
the  editorial  pages  to  virulent  party  disputes. 

Nevertheless,  the  Yiddish  press,  particularly 
the  Socialistic  branch  of  it,  is  an  educative  ele- 
ment of  great  value  in  the  Ghetto.  It  has  helped 
essentially  to  extend  the  intellectual  horizon  of 
the  Jew  beyond  the  boundaries  of  the  Talmud, 
and  has  largely  displaced  the  rabbi  in  the  posi- 
tion of  teacher  of  the  people.  Not  only  do  these 
papers  constitute  a  forum  of  discussion,  but  they 
publish  frequent  translations  of  the  Russian, 
French,  and  German  modern  classics,  and  for 
the  first  time  lay  the  news  of  the  world  before 
the  poor  Jewish  people.  An  event  of  moment 
to  the  Jews,  such  as  a  riot  in  Russia,  comes  to 
New  York  in  private  letters,  and  is  printed  in 
the  papers  here  often  before  the  version  pre- 
pared "  by  the  Russian  Government  appears  in 
the  Russian  newspapers.  Thus  a  Jew  on  the 
east  side  received  a  letter  from  his  father  in  Rus- 
sia asking  why  the  reserves  there  had  been  called 
out,  and  the  son's  reply  gave  him  the  first  in- 
formation about  the  war  in  China. 

The  make-up  of  the  Yiddish  newspaper  is  in  a 
general  way  similar  to  that  of  its  American  con- 
temporary. The  former  is  much  smaller,  how- 
ever, containing  only  about  as  much  reading 
matter  as  would  fill  six  or  eight  columns  of  a 

178 


"down-town"  newspaper.  The  sporting  de- 
partment is  entirely  lacking,  the  Jew  being 
utterly  indifferent  to  exercise  of  any  kind.  They 
are  all  afternoon  newspapers,  and  draw  largely 
for  the  news  upon  the  morning  editions  of  the 
American  papers.  The  staff  is  very  limited,  con- 
sisting of  a  few  editors  and,  usually,  only  one 
reporter  for  the  local  news  of  the  quarter.  They 
give  more  space  proportionately  than  any  Ameri- 
can paper  to  pure  literature — chiefly  translations, 
tho  there  are  some  stories  founded  on  the 
life  of  the  east  side — and  to  scientific  articles  of 
popular  character.  The  interesting  feature  of 
these  newspapers,  however,  consists  in  their 
rivalries  and  their  differences  in  principle.  This 
can  be  presented  most  simply  in  a  short  sketch 
of  their  history. 

THE  CONSERVATIVE  JOURNALS 

Yiddish  journalism  in  New  York  began  about 
thirty  years  ago,  and  continued  in  unimportant 
and  unrepresentative  newspapers  until  about 
twelve  years  ago,  when  the  Tagebhttt  the  first 
daily  newspaper,  and  the  cArbeiterzeitung,  an  im- 
portant Socialistic  weekly,  now  defunct,  but 
from  which  developed  the  present  Socialist  dai- 
lies, came  into  existence.  The  Tageblait,  which 
has  maintained  its  general  character  from  the 

179 


beginning,  is  the  most  conservative,  as  well  as 
the  oldest,  of  the  daily  newspapers  of  the  Ghetto. 
It  is  national  and  orthodox,  and  fights  tooth 
and  nail  for  whatever  is  distinctively  Jewish  in 
customs,  literature,  language,  and  religion.  It 
hates  the  reform  sects  in  religion  and  the  Social- 
istic tendencies  in  politics  and  economics.  It  is 
called  a  ''capitalist"  paper  by  its  opponents,  and 
is  so  in  the  sense  that  it  is  more  dependent  upon 
its  advertisements  than  the  Socialistic  papers, 
which  are  partly  supported  by  frequent  enter- 
tainments and  balls,  to  which  all  their  friends  go. 
And  yet  how  little  capitalistic  is  even  this  paper 
is  shown  by  the  fact  that  while  it  takes  a  non- 
committal attitude  towards  strikes  in  the  Ghetto 
it  supports  those  which  occur  outside. 

Sympathetic  with  workingmen  and  not  antag- 
onistic to  the  employers  of  the  Ghetto,  the  Tage- 
^/a// conventionally  unites  all  the  Jewish  interests 
it  consistently  can,  and  has  admittedly  the  larg- 
est circulation  of  any  daily  paper  in  the  Ghetto. 
The  Socialists  call  it  "bourgeois"  as  well  as 
"capitalistic"  (which  is  the  most  horrid  of  all 
words  in  the  quarter).  Some  call  it  chauvinistic 
because  of  its  strong  Nationalist  tendency,  and 
fanatic  because  it  upholds  the  religion  of  the 
Jews ;  the  Jew  who  wants  first  of  all  to  be  an 
American  and  up-to-date  hates  the  Tageblati  as 

i8o 


tending  to  strengthen  the  distinction  between  Jew 
and  Gentile.  This  paper  goes  so  far  in  its  con- 
servatism that,  according  to  its  enemies,  it  con- 
demns all  rabbis  who  mention  the  name  of  Christ 
in  their  sermons,  and  holds  to  a  strict  interpre- 
tation of  Talmudic  law  in  regard  to  habits  of  life. 
**It  is  only  the  old-fashioned  greenhorns,"  said 
the  editor  of  one  of  the  other  papers,  ''coming 
from  the  old  country,  who  will  stand  for  it." 

THE  SOCIALIST  PAPERS 

The  Socialist  weekly,  th^  Arbeiterzeitungf  marked 
the  beginning  of  the  most  vital  journalism  of  the 
east  side,  and  stood  in  striking  contrast  to  the 
TagMatt.  In  the  circumstances  attending  its  de- 
velopment into  the  two  existing  rival  Socialistic 
papers,  the  Vo/h?arts  and  the  Abendblati,^  a  picture 
of  the  progressive  and  passionate  character  of  the 
Russian-Jewish  Socialists  of  the  Ghetto  is  pre- 
sented, and  some  of  the  most  important  and  pic- 
turesque personages.  The  most  educated  and 
intelligent  among  the  Jews  of  the  east  side 
speak  Russian,  and  are  reactionary  in  politics 
and  religion.  Coming  from  Russia,  as  they  do, 
they  have  a  fierce  hatred  of  government  and  capi- 
talism, and  a  more  or  less  Tolstoian  love  for  the 

♦Recently  defunct— June,  1901. 
181 


peasant  and  the  workingman.  The  purpose  of 
the  organizers  of  the  Arbeiterzeitung  Publishing 
Association  was  to  educate  the  people,  promul- 
gate the  doctrines  of  Socialism,  and  be  altogether 
the  organ  of  the  workman  against  the  employer. 
From  the  outset,  beginning  in  1890,  the  c/lrbeiter- 
zeitung  was  a  popular  and  influential  paper. 

All  the  older  journals  had  affected  a  German- 
ized Yiddish,  which  the  people  did  not  under- 
stand ;  but  the  new  paper,  aiming  at  the  modern 
heart  of  the  Ghetto,  carried  on  its  propaganda  in 
the  common  jargon  of  the  Jew,  the  pure  Yid- 
dish ;  and,  growing  enormously  in  circulation, 
forced  the  language  down  the  throats  of  the  con- 
servative journals.  In  this  popular  tongue,  the 
Arbeikrzeitung  carried  on  for  five  years  a  most 
energetic  campaign  for  a  broad  Socialism,  ad- 
mitting all  allied  movements  in  favor  of  common 
ownership,  directing  and  encouraging  strikes, 
printing  popular  scientific  articles,  realistic 
stories,  dramatic  criticisms,  and  expressing  and 
leading  generally  the  best  intelligence  of  the 
Yiddish  community.  With  the  constituency  of 
which  this  journal  was  the  organ,  Socialism  had 
almost  the  force  and  passion  of  a  religious  move- 
ment. An  example  of  the  paper's  power  was  in 
connection  with  the  Bakers'  Union.  That  or- 
ganization imposed  a  label  on  all  bread  made  in 

182 


the  Ghetto,  and  insisted  that  all  the  bakers  should 
handle  only  bread  of  that  brand.  The  Arbeiter- 
zeitung  supported  the  Union  so  effectively  that  no 
other  bread  could  possibly  be  obtained  in  the 
quarter.  At  the  first  Yahresfest  of  the  journal, 
Cooper  Union  overflowed  with  enthusiastic 
workingmen,  and  long  lines  of  the  excluded 
stretched  out  down  the  Bowery  to  Houston 
Street. 

The  man  whose  name  is  most  intimately  con- 
nected with  the  Arbeiterzeitung  is  its  former  editor, 
Abraham  Cahan,  now  known  outside  of  the 
Ghetto  as  a  writer  in  English  of  novels  and  short 
stories  of  Jewish  life.  He  is  of  the  best  type  of 
the  ethical  agitator  ;  a  convincing  and  impas- 
sioned speaker ;  he  has  held  hundreds  of  work- 
ingmen by  his  clear  and  strongly  expressed 
ideas,  whether  written  in  his  paper  or  spoken  at 
nightly  meetings  in  some  poor  hall  on  the  east 
side,  where  the  men  gathered  after  the  labors  of 
the  day.  Twice  he  went  abroad  to  speak  at 
international  labor  conferences.  At  the  same 
time  that  he  supported  the  definite  cause  of  the 
Social  Democracy,  he  put  the  same  energy  and 
passion  into  the  education  of  the  people  in  scien- 
tific and  literary  directions.  He  spoke  and 
wrote  for  directness,  simplicity,  and  humanity. 
In  art,  therefore,  the  realistic  school  of  Russian 

184 


writers,  of  whom  in  our  generation  there  have 
been  so  many  great  men,  received  his  fighting 
allegiance.  For  five  years  Cahan  put  all  his  in- 
telligence and  devotion  into  this  work,  and  the 
power  of  the  Arbeiterzeitung  was  partly  his  power. 
To-day,  in  the  Ghetto,  where  fierce  jealousies 
are  rampant,  Cahan  is  admitted  to  be  the  man, 
among  many  men  of  energy,  intelligence,  and  de- 
votion, who  has  wielded  most  influence  in  the 
community. 

A  literary  and  dramatic  event  happened  in 
1892  which  showed  the  power  of  Cahan  and  his 
Socialist  associates  in  influencing  the  taste  of 
the  Ghetto.  It  was  the  production  of  Gordin's 
drama  Siberia*  Up  to  that  time,  nothing  but  con- 
ventional opera,  melodrama,  and  historical  plays 
had  been  given  on  the  Bowery,  but  the  day 
after  the  performance  of  Siberia,  the  Arbeiierzeitung 
contained  a  long  review  of  the  play  by  Cahan, 
welcoming  it  enthusiastically  as  an  event  break- 
ing the  way  for  realistic  art  in  the  colony.  Since 
then  this  type  of  play  has  taken  a  prominent 
place  in  the  repertory  at  the  Yiddish  theatres. 
For  five  years  the  Arbeiterzeitung  continued  its 
influence,  but  then  came  a  split  among  the  Social- 
ists, which  resulted  in  two  daily  papers — the 
Abendbtatt  and  the  Vor^'arts^ 

Cahan,  Miller  and  others  of  the  men  who  had 

185 


started  the  Arbeiterzeitung  gradually  lost  control 
through  the  share  system  which  had  been  in- 
augurated. They  desired  to  maintain  a  liberal 
policy  towards  all  labor  movements,  and  to  allow 


BUYING  A  NEWSPAPER 


the  literary  and  Socialistic  societies  to  be  repre- 
sented in  the  paper,  but  the  other  faction  wanted 
the  newspaper  to  be  exclusively  an  organ  of  So- 
cialism in  its  narrow  sense.  The  result  was  that, 

i86 


soon  after  the  publication  of  the  Arbeiterzeitung  as 
the  Daily  Abendbhtt,  Cahan  resigned  the  editor- 
ship and  turned  disgusted  to  English  news- 
papers and  to  realistic  fiction,  in  which  he  was 
absorbed  until  recently.  A  few  months  ago  he 
resumed  the  editorship  of  the  Vot^iv'drts  after  an 
absence  of  several  years  from  participation  in 
Yiddish  journalism.  Louis  Miller,  a  witty  and 
energetic  Socialist  and  writer,  who  had  from  the 
first  been  active  in  the  management  of  the 
weekly,  was  one  of  the  most  prominent  of  the 
men  who  continued  the  fight  against  the  nar- 
rower Socialistic  element — a  fight  which  resulted 
in  the  establishment  in  1897  of  the  other  Social- 
ist daily  now  existing,  the  Vorw'arts. 

These  two  papers  were,  until  recently,  when 
the  Abendblatt  died,  bitter  rivals.  The  Abendblatt 
was  devoted  to  the  interests  of  the  Socialist  La- 
bor Party  while  the  Vorm)'arts  supports  in  a  gen- 
eral way  the  Social  Democracy  ;  altho  it  is  not 
so  distinctively  a  party  paper  as  was  the  Abend- 
blatt* The  adherents  of  the  latter  paper  looked 
upon  the  Vor<warls  as  unreliable  and  the  Vorw'arts 
people  thought  the  Abendblatt  intolerant.  The 
Abendblatt  prided  itself  on  its  uncompromising 
character,  and  the  Vorwarts  is  content  to  adapt 
itself  to  what  it  deems  the  present  needs  of  the 
Jewish  community.  Thus  the  Uorwarts  is  willing 

187 


to  join  hands  with  reform  movements  in  gen- 
eral, with  trades  unions,  etc.,  while  the  Abendblatt 
stiffly  demanded  that  allied  organizations  should 
enter  the  socialist  camp.  The  triumph  of  the 
^orwarts  was  therefore  a  triumph  of  the  more 
liberal  spirits. 

Two  other  daily  publications  are  more  dis- 
tinctively mere  newspapers  than  the  two  Social- 
istic organs,  and  make  no  consistent  attempt 
to  influence  public  opinion,  at  least  in  the  definite 
direction  of  a  movement."  The  Abend-Post 
seems  to  have  no  very  distinctive  policy  or 
character;  it  is  neither  Socialistic  nor  conserva- 
tive Jewish ;  the  distinction  it  aims  at  is  to  be  a 
newspaper  simply,  to  reflect  events  and  not  to 
determine  opinion.  In  the  editor's  words,  the 
c/ibend-'Posi  "  is  not  chauvinistic,  like  the  Tageblati; 
the  Jew  does  not  resound  in  it.  It  aims  to  Amer- 
icanize the  Ghetto,  and  diminish  or  ignore  the 
chasm  between  Jew  and  Gentile."  The  editor  - 
of  one  of  the  Socialist  papers  calls  this  sort  of 
thing  by  another  name.  "The  Abend-Post,''  he 
said,  **is  an  imitation  of  American  yellow  jour- 
nalism." A  fifth  daily,  the  Herald,  is  even  less 
distinctive  than  the  Mend-Post.  It  has  no  party 
and  is  not  as  sensational  as  the  other.  It  might, 
perhaps,  be  called  the  Jewish  "mugwump." 

Recently  a  sixth  daily.  The  JeJt?ish  World,  has 

i88 


been  organized  under  favorable  auspices.  Its 
avowed  policy  is  to  bridge  the  chasm  which  ex- 
ists between  sons  and  fathers  in  the  Ghetto ;  to 
make  the  sons  more  Hebraic  and  the  fathers 
more  American  ;  the  sons  more  conservative  and 
the  fathers  more  progressive.  Connected  with 
its  management  is  H.  Masliansky,  one  of  the 
most  impassioned  orators  of  the  Ghetto. 

The  question  of  the  circulation  figures  of  these 
five  dailies  is  a  difficult  one.  About  the  only 
thing  that  seems  certain  is  that  the  Tageblatt 
leads  in  this  respect.  Even  the  editors  of  the 
other  papers  admit  that,  altho  they  differ  as  to 
the  absolute  figures.  The  editor  of  the  Tage- 
btatt  places  his  paper's  circulation  at  40,000,  the 
c/lbend-Post  at  14,000,  the  Herald  next,  and  the  two 
Socialistic  papers  last,  which  ending  is  a  felicitous 
consummation  for  the  editor  of  the  most  conserv- 
ative newspaper  in  the  Ghetto.  The  editor  of 
the  Abend-^ost  says  the  Tageblatt  leads  with  a 
daily  issue  of  about  30,000,  the  cAbend-Post  coming 
next  with  23,700,  the  Herald  and  the  Socialist 
papers  stringing  out  in  the  rear.  The  editors  of 
the  Socialist  sheets  naturally  give  a  somewhat 
different  order.  Mr.  Miller  of  the  ^orw'arts  puts 
the  actual  circulation  of  the  Tageblatt  at  about 
17,000 ;  his  own  paper,  the  'Vormjartsy  next,  with 
about  14,000  daily  except  on  Saturday,  the  Jew- 

189 


ish  Sunday,  when  the  number  ranges  between 
20,000  and  25,000,  owing  to  the  fact  that  the  con- 
servative newspapers  (/.  e*,  those  that  are  not 
Socialistic)  do  not  appear  on  that  day.  The  cir- 
culation of  the  rival  Socialistic  paper,  the  cAbend- 
blatt,  he  puts  at  about  8,000.  In  these  figures 
there  is  no  attempt  at  entire  accuracy. 

THE  ANARCHIST  PAPERS 

There  are  several  Yiddish  weekly  and  monthly 
journals  published  in  New  York.  The  TagebUU, 
cAbend-Post  and  Herald  have  weekly  editions,  but 
by  far  the  most  interesting  of  the  papers  which 
are  not  dailies  are  the  two  Anarchistic  sheets, 
the  Freie  cArbeiter-stimmey  a  weekly,  and  the  Freie 
Geseltschaft,  a  monthly. 

Contrary  to  the  general  impression  of  the 
character  of  these  people,  in  which  bombs  play  a 
large  part,  the  Anarchists  of  the  Ghetto  are  a 
gentle  and  idealistic  body  of  men.  The  ab- 
normal activity  of  the  Russian  Jews  in  this 
country  is  expressed  by  the  Socialists  rather 
than  the  Anarchists.  The  latter  are  largely 
theorists  and  aim  rather  at  the  education  of  the 
people  by  a  journalistic  exploitation  of  their  gen- 
eral principles  than  by  a  warlike  attitude  to- 
wards specific  events  of  the  time.    Their  atti- 

190 


tude  is  not  so  partisan  as  that  of  the  Socialists. 
They  quarrel  less  among  themselves,  and  are 
characterized  by  dreamy  eyes  and  an  unpractical 
scheme  of  things.  They  believe  in  non-resist- 
ance and  the  power  of  abstract  right,  and  are 
trying  to  work  out  a  peaceful  revolution,  main- 
taining that  the  violence  often  accompanying  the 
movement  in  Europe  is  due  to  the  fact  that 
many  Anarchists  are  passionate  individuals  who 
in  their  indignation  do  not  live  up  to  their  essen- 
tially gentle  principles.  The  Socialists  aim  at  a 
more  strictly  centralized  government,  even  than 
any  one  existing,  since  they  desire  the  whole 
machinery  of  production  and  distribution  to  be  in 
the  hands  of  the  community;  the  Anarchists  de- 
sire no  government  whatever,  believing  that  law 
works  against  the  native  dignity  of  the  individ- 
ual, and  trusting  to  man's  natural  goodness  to 
maintain  order  under  free  conditions.  A  man's 
own  conscience  only  can  punish  him  sufficiently, 
they  think.  The  Socialists  go  in  vividly  for  poli- 
tics, while  the  Anarchists  have  nothing  to  do 
with  them.  The  point  on  which  these  two  par- 
ties agree  is  the  common  hatred  of  private  prop- 
erty. 

The  weekly  Anarchistic  paper,  the  Freie  cAr- 
beiter-sUmme,  prints  about  7,000  copies.  Out  of 
this  circulation,  with  the  assistance  of  balls, 

192 


entertainments,  and  benefits  at  the 
theatres,  the  paper  is  able  to  exist. 
It  pays  a  salary  to  only  one  man, 
the  editor,  S.  Janowsky,  who  re- 
ceives the  sum  of  $13  a  week.  He 
is  a  little  dark-haired  man,  with 
beautiful  eyes,  and  soft,  persuasive 
voice.  He  thinks  that  government 
is  so  corrupt  that  the  Anarchists 
need  do  little  to  achieve  their  ends; 
that  silent  forces  are  at  work  which 
will  bring  about  the  great  day  of  An- 
archistic communism.  In  his  news- 
paper he  tries  to  educate  the  common 
people  in  the  principles  of  anarchy. 
The  aim  is  popular,  and  the  more  in- 
telligent exploitation  of  the  cause  is 
left  to  the  monthly.  The  Freigesellschaft,  with  the 
same  principles  as  the  Freie  cArbeiter-stimme,  has  a 
higher  literary  and  philosophical  character.  The 
editors  and  contributors  are  men  of  culture  and 
education,  and  work  without  any  pay.  It  is  still 
gentler  and  more  pacific  in  its  character  than  the 
weekly,  of  whose  comparatively  contemporane- 
ous and  agitatory  method  it  disapproves  calmly; 
believing,  as  the  editors  of  the  monthly  do,  that 
a  weekly  paper  cannot  exist  without  giving  the 
people  something  other  than  the  ideally  best. 

193 


S.  JANOWSKY 


With  reference  to  the  ideally  best,  a  number  of 
serious,  contemplative  men  gather  in  a  base- 
ment opposite  the  Hebrew  Institute,  the  head- 
quarters of  the  monthly,  and  there  talk  about 
the  subjects  often  discussed  within  its  pages, 
such  as  Slavery  and  Freedom,  Darwinism  and 
Communism,  Man  and  Government,  the  Purpose 
of  Education,  etc., — any  broad  economic  subject 
admitting  of  abstract  treatment. 

The  talk  of  these  Anarchists  is  distinguished 
by  a  high  idealism,  and  the  unpractical  and  de- 
voted attitude.  One  of  the  foremost  among 
them  (they  say  they  have  no  leaders,  as  that 
would  be  against  individual  liberty)  is  Katz,  lit- 
erary editor  of  the  ^orJi?arts^  a  contributor  to  the 
Anarchistic  monthly,  a  former  editor  of  the  An- 
archistic weekly,  and  a  recently  successful  play- 
wright in  the  Ghetto.  His  play,  the  Yiddish 
Don  Quixote,  was  produced  at  the  Thalia  Theatre 
on  the  Bowery.  Not  since  Gordin's  Siberia  has  a 
play  aroused  such  intelligent  interest.  The  hero 
is  a  Quixotic  Jew,  full  of  kindness,  devotion,  and 
love  for  his  race  and  for  humankind. 

SOME  PICTURESQUE  CONTRIBUTORS 

There  are  many  other  picturesque  and 
interesting  men  connected  with  these  Yiddish 

194 


journals,  either  as  edi- 
tors or  contributors. 
Morris  Rosenfeld,  the 
sweat-shop  poet,  writes 
articles  and  occasional- 
ly poems  for  the  Socialistic  papers ; 
Abraham  Wald,  the  vigorous  and 
stormy  young  poet,  contributes  lit- 
erary and  Socialistic  articles  three  times 
a  week  to  Vor%>arts;  the  editor  of  one  of 
the  conservative  papers,  distinguished  for 
his  logic  and  his  clever  business  manage- 
ment, is  interesting  because  of  the  facility 
with  which  he  adapts  his  principles  to  the 
commercial  needs  of  the  moment.  Atone 
time  he  was  a  Socialist,  then  became  a 
Christian,  then  a  Jew  again  simply,  and  now  is  a 
conservative  Jew.  Another  editor  remarked  that 
he  was  a  man  of  sense  and  logic.  One  of  the 
Jews  who  writes  for  the  Ghetto  papers  is  A. 
Frumkin,  who  has  the  rare  distinction  of  having 
been  born  and  educated  in  Jerusalem.  There 
he  lived  until  he  was  eighteen,  when  he  went  to 
Constantinople  and  studied  Turkish  law;  after- 
wards he  journeyed  to  Paris,  where  he  married, 
and  then  to  New  York,  where  he  writes  many 
articles  in  Yiddish  about  Jerusalem  and  Pales- 
tine, which  are  published  largely  in  the  ^orlparts. 

195 


KATZ 


He  is  a  young  man  of  about  thirty,  with  a  fresh, 
rosy  look  and  a  buoyant  manner.  He  is  an 
Anarchist,  and  his  energetic  bearing  is  in  strong 
contrast  to  the  pale  cast  of  thought  that  marks 
his  fellows,  the  intellectuals  among  the  An- 
archists of  New  York.  Other  occasional  or  con- 
stant writers  are  the  Hebrew  poet  Dolitzki, 
who  is  characterized  in  another  chapter ;  and 
the  poets  Morris  Winchevsky  and  Abraham 
Sharkansky. 

These  two  men  are  in  a  class  quite  different 
from  that  of  the  four  poets  to  whom  a  separate 
paper  has  been  devoted.  They  are,  as  opposed 
to  Rosenfeld,  Zunser,  Dolitzki  and  Wald,  inter- 
esting rather  for  form  than  for  substance. 
They  are  men  with  some  lyric  gift  and  a  talent 
for  verse,  but  are  strong  neither  in  thought  nor 
feeling.  Winchevsky  is  a  Socialist,  a  man  who 
has  edited  more  than  one  Yiddish  publication 
with  success,  of  uncommon  learning  and  cultiva- 
tion. In  literary  attempt  he  is  more  nearly  like 
the  ordinary  American  or  English  writer  than 
the  Jewish.  Most  of  the  Ghetto  poets  portray 
the  dark  and  sordid  aspect  of  their  lives.  Most 
of  them  do  it  with  unhappy  strength,  certainly 
one  of  them,  Rosenfeld,  does  it  with  genius. 
But  Winchevsky  attempts  to  give  a  bright  pic- 
ture of  things.    He  tries  to  be  entertaining,  and 

196 


heartfelt,  sentimental  and  sweet.  Truth  is  not 
so  much  what  he  attains  as  a  little  vein  of  senti- 
mental verse  which  is  sometimes  touched  with  a 
true  lyric  quality. 

Sharkansky  can  not  be  put  in  any  intellectual 
category.  He  is  a  man  of  considerable  poetic 
talent,  but  he  seems  to  have  little  feeling  and 
fewer  ideas.  There  is  no  movement"  or  ten- 
dency for  which  he  cares.  In  character  he  is  a 
business  man,  with  a  detached  talent  unrelated 
to  the  remainder  of  his  personality. 

Philip  Kranz  and  A.  Feigenbaum,  editors  and 
writers  of  political  editorials,  are  two 
of  the  most  prominent  men  con- 
nected with  the  history  of  Yiddish 
journalism.  They  are  men  of  energy 
and  force  and  represent  a  large  class 
of  Jews  interested  in  social  science 
and  political  economy.    A.  Tan- 
nenbaum  occupies  a 
peculiar  and  interest- 
ing position  as  a  writer 
for  the  newspapers.  . 
He  writes  very  long 
novels,  the  plots  of 
which  are  drawn  from 
books  in  French,  Ger- 
man or  Russian.  About 


A.  FRUMKIN 


these  plots  he  weaves  incidents  and  characters 
from  American  history,  and  inserts  popular  ideas 
of  science  and  philosophy.  His  aim  is  to  educate 
the  Ghetto  by  dishing  up  science  and  philosophy 
in  a  palatable  form.  D.  Hermalin's  distinctive 
character  is  that  of  a  translator  of  foreign  books 
into  Yiddish.  Swift,  Tolstoi,  de  Maupassant, 
have  been  in  part  translated  by  him  into  the 
Ghetto's  dialect.  He,  like  some  of  the  other  men 
best  known  for  more  unpretentious  work,  is  an 
author  of  very  poor  plays.  David  Pinsky,  a  writer 
for  the  Abendblatt,  is  very  interesting  not  only  as  a 
writer  of  short  sketches  of  literary  value,  in  which 
capacity  he  is  mentioned  in  another  chapter,  but 
also  as  a  dramatic  critic  and  as  one  of  the  more 
wide-awake  and  distinctively  modern  of  the 
young  men  of  Yiddish  New  York.  He  is  so  keen 
with  the  times  that  he  looks  even  on  realism  with 
distrust.  Even  the  great  philosopher,  the  second 
Spinoza,  a  man  highly  respected  in  a  professional 
way  by  eminent  scientists  of  the  day,  Silverstein, 
is  an  occasional  contributor  to  these  interesting 
newspapers. 


198 


CKoLpter  Seven 


^* 

The  Russian  Jews  of  the  east  side  of  New- 
York  are,  in  proportion  as  they  are  educated, 
as  I  have  said,  realists  in  literary  faith.  Is  it  nat- 
ural ?  Is  it  true  to  life  ?  they  are  inclined  to  ask 
of  every  piece  of  writing  that  comes  under  their 
eyes.  As  their  lives  are  circumscribed  and 
more  or  less  unfortunate,  their  ideas  of  what 
constitutes  the  truth  are  limited  and  gloomy. 
Their  criteria  of  art  are  formed  on  the  basis  of 
the  narrow  but  intense  work  of  modern  Russian 
fiction.  They  look  up  to  Tolstoi  and  Chekhov, 
and  reject  all  principles  founded  upon  more  ro- 
mantic and  more  genial  models.  The  simplicity 
of  their  critical  ideals  lends,  however,  to  their 
intellectual  lives  a  certainty  which  is  striking 
enough  when  compared  with  the  varied,  waver- 
ing, ungrounded  literary  norms  and  judgments 
of  the  ordinary  intelligent  Anglo-Saxon.  The 
lack  of  authoritative  literary  criticism  in  Amer- 
ica is  partly  due  to  the  multiplicity  of  our  classic 
models.    With  a  simpler  literature  in  mind  the 

199 


Russian  is  more  constantly 
able  to  apply  a  decisive  test. 

The  Russian  Jew  of  culture 
when  he  comes  to  New  York 
carries  with  him  Russian  ideals 
of  literature.  The  best  Yid- 
dish work  produced  in  Amer- 
ica is  Russian  in  principle. 
Many  of  the  writers  who  pub- 
lish literary  sketches  in  the 
newspapers  of  the  Ghetto  have 
written  originally  in  the  Rus- 
sian language,  and  know  the  Russian  Jewish  life 
better  than  the  life  of  the  Yiddish  east  side  ;  and 
even  now  they  write  mainly  about  conditions  in 
Russia.    Moreover,  those  who  know  their  New 


MAN 


200 


York  and  its  special  Jewish  life  thoroughly  and 
mirror  it  in  their  work  are  in  method,  tho  not  in 
material,  Russian  ;  are  close,  faithful,  unhappy 
realists. 

Whatever  its  form,  however,  a  considerable 
body  of  fiction  is  published  more  or  less  regu- 
larly in  the  daily  and  weekly  periodicals  of  the 
quarter  which  represents  faithfully  the  life  of  the 
poor  Russian  Jew  in  the  great  American  city. 
A  "  Gentile  "  who  knew  nothing  of  the  New  York 
Ghetto,  but  could  read  the  Yiddish  language, 
might  get  a  good  picture  of  something  more  than 
the  superficial  aspects  of  the  quarter  through 
the  sketches  of  half  a  dozen  of  the  more  talented 
men  who  write  for  the  Socialist  newspapers. 
The  conditions  under  which  the  children  of 
Israel  live  in  New  York,  their  manners,  problems 
and  ideals,  appear,  if  not  with  completeness,  at 
least  with  suggestiveness,  in  these  short  articles, 
usually  in  fiction  form,  the  best  of  them  direct, 
simple  and  unpretentious,  true  to  life  in  general 
and  to  the  life  of  the  Russian  Jew  in  America  in 
particular.  The  sad  aspect  of  life  predominates, 
but  not  through  conventional  sentimentality  on 
the  part  of  the  writers,  who  are  not  aware  that 
they  are  objects  of  possible  pity.  They  merely 
tell  without  comment  the  facts  they  know.  For 
the  most  part,  those  facts  are  gloomy  and  sor- 

20I 


did,  often  lightened,  however,  by  the  sense  of 
the  ridiculous,  which  seldom  entirely  deserts  the 
Jew;  and  as  likely  as  not  rendered  attractive  by 
feeling  and  by  beauty  of  characterization. 

SOME  REALISTS 

S.  Libin  holds  the  place  among  prose  writers 
that  Morris  Rosenfeld  does  among  poets. 
Like  Rosenfeld,  he  has  been  a  sweat-shop 
worker,  and,  like  him,  writes  about  the  sordid 
conditions  of  the  life.  The  shop,  the  push- 
cart pedler  and  the  tenement  -  house  mark 
the  range  of  his  subjects ;  but  into  these  un- 
sightly things  he  puts  constant  feeling  and  an 
unfailing  pathos  and  humor.  As  in  the  case  of 
Rosenfeld,  there  are  tears  in  everything  he 
writes ;  but,  unlike  Rosenfeld,  he  also  smiles. 
He  is  a  dark,  thin,  little  man,  as  ragged  as 
a  tramp,  with  plaintive  eyes  and  a  deprecatory 
smile  when  he  speaks.  He  is  uncommonly 
poor,  and  at  present  sells  newspapers  for  a 
living  and  writes  an  occasional  sketch,  for  which 
he  is  paid  at  the  rate  of  $1.50  or  $2.00  a  column 
by  the  Yiddish  newspapers.  He  is  able  to  pro- 
duce these  little  articles  only  on  impulse ;  and, 
consequently,  altho  he  is  one  of  the  more  prolific 
of  the  sketch-writers  of  the  quarter,  writes  for 

202 


C-  - 


relief  rather  than  for  income.  Some 
of  his  contemporaries,  with  greater 
constancy  to  commercial  ideals,  have 
partly  given  up  unremunerative  lit- 
erature for  the  position  of  newspaper 
hacks ;  but  Libin,  remembering  his 
sweat-shop  days,  does  not  like  a 
*'boss,"  and  is  under  the  constant 
necessity  of  relieving  his  feelings  by 
his  work. 

Libin  lives  with  his  wife  and  child 
in  a  tenement  -  house  in  Harlem, 
where  he  has  continually  before  his 
eyes  the  home  conditions  which  form  the  sub- 
ject of  so  many  of  his  sketches.  This  little 
man,  who  looks  like  the  commonest  kind  of  a 
sweat-shop  sheeny,"  has  the  simplest  and  sin- 
cerest  interest  in  domestic  things.  With  great 
pride  he  pointed  out  to  the  visitor  his  one- 
year-old  baby,  who  lay  asleep  on  a  miserable 
sofa,  and  talked  of  it  and  of  his  wife,  who  has 
also  been  a  worker  in  the  shops,  with  greater 
pleasure  even  than  of  his  sketches,  which,  how- 
ever, he  writes  with  joy  and  solace.  He  wept 
when  he  spoke  of  his  child  that  died,  and  he  has 
written  poems  in  prose  about  it  which  weep,  too. 
In  the  story  of  his  life  which  he  told,  a  common, 
ignorant  Jew  was  revealed,  a  thorough  product 

203 


S.  LII 


of  the  sweat-shop — a  man  distinguished  from 
the  proletarian  crowd  only  by  a  capacity  for 
feeling  and  by  a  genuine  talent.  He  was  born 
in  Russia  twenty-nine  years  ago,  and  came  to 
New  York  when  he  was  twenty-two  years  old. 
For  four  years  he  worked  as  a  cap-maker  in 
shops  which  were  then  more  wretched  than 
they  are  now,  from  sixteen  to  seventeen  hours  a 
day.  While  at  his  task  he  would  steal  a  few 
minutes  to  devote  to  his  sketches,  which  he  sent 
to  the  Arbeiier-Zeitung*  Cahan  recognized  in 
Libin's  misspelled,  illiterate,  almost  illegible 
manuscript  a  quality  which  worthily  ranked  it 
with  good  realistic  literature.  Since  then  Libin 
has  written  extensively  for  the  Zukunfi,  a  month- 
ly now  defunct ;  the  Truth,  published  at  one  time 
by  the  poet  Winchevsky  in  Boston,  and  for  the 
New  York  daily  ^orwdrts,  to  which  he  still  con- 
tributes. 

One  of  his  sketches,  the  ''New  Law,"  about  a 
column  and  a  half  long,  expresses  one  aspect  of 
the  life  led  by  a  sweat-shop  family.  A  tailor, 
going  to  the  shop  one  morning,  as  usual,  finds 
the  boss  and  the  other  workers  in  a  state  of 
excitement.  They  have  just  heard  about  the 
new  law  limiting  the  day  in  the  shop  to  ten 
hours  and  forbidding  the  men  to  do  any  work  at 
home.    This  to  them  is  a  serious  proposition, 

204 


for,  as  they  are  paid  by  the  piece,  they  need 
many  hours  to  make  enough  to  pay  their  expen- 
ses. The  tailor  goes  home  earlier  than  usual 
that  night,  about  ten  o'clock,  with  the  custom- 


HE  IS  TIRED,  DISTRESSED  AND  IRRITATED 


ary  bundle  of  clothes  for  his  wife  and  children  to 
work  over.  He  is  tired,  distressed  and  irritated 
at  the  thought  of  the  law.  He  finds  his  wife  and 
ten-year-old  daughter  half  asleep,  as  usual,  but 


yet  sewing  busily.  They,  too,  are  pale  and 
tired,  and  near  them  on  the  lounge  is  a  sleeping 
baby  ;  on  the  floor  another.  The  little  girl  tries 
to  hide  her  drowsiness  from  her  father,  and 
works  more  busily  than  ever. 

Why  are  you  back  so  early  ?  "  asks  his  wife. 

''Pretty  soon,"  he  replies  morosely,  'Til  be 
back  still  earlier." 

'*Is  work  slack  again?"  she  asks,  her  cheek 
growing  paler. 

*'  It's  another  trouble,  not  that,"  he  says.  ''  It's 
a  new  law,  a  bitter  law."  To  his  little  daughter 
he  adds:  ''Sleep,  child,  you  will  soon  have  time 
to  sleep  all  day." 

His  ignorant  wife  does  not  understand. 

"A  new  law?  What  is  that?  What  does  it 
mean  ?  "  she  asks. 

"  It  means  that  I  can  work  only  ten  hours  a 
day." 

Then  they  calculate  how  much  money  he  can 
make  in  ten  hours.  Now  he  works  nineteen 
hours,  and  they  have  nothing  to  spare.  Under 
the  new  law  he  will  be  idle  seven  or  eight  hours 
a  day.  What  will  they  do  ?  She  thinks  the 
boss  must  be  responsible  for  the  terrible  ar- 
rangement, for  does  not  all  trouble  come  from 
the  boss  ?  He  is  irritated  by  her  simplicity,  and 
she  begins  to  weep.    The  little  girl  is  overjoyed 

206 


at  the  thought  that  she  will  no  longer  have  to 
work,  but  tries  to  conceal  her  pleasure.  The 
laborer,  moved  by  his  wife's  tears,  endeavors  to 
comfort  her. 

*'Ah,"  he  says,  ^*it's  only  a  law  !  Two  years 
ago  there  was  one  like  it,  but  the  work  went  on 
just  the  same."  But  she  continues  to  weep 
until  their  evening  meal  is  ready,  when  the  chil- 
dren are  aroused  from  their  sleep  to  obey  **the 
supper  law,"  Libin  concludes  in  a  spirit  of  tragi- 
comedy. 

"She  Got  Her  Prize"  is  the  title  of  a  sketch 
in  which  unexhilarating  comedy  predominates. 
A  laborer  borrows  some  clothes  to  go  to  a 
party.  In  his  absence  his  wife  sells  a  number  of 
rags  to  the  old-clothes  man,  who  innocently 
takes  off  her  husband's  only  suit,  carelessly  put 
near  the  bundle  he  was  to  carry  away.  The 
husband  does  not  notice  the  loss  until  the  next 
day,  when  he  has  nothing  to  wear,  cannot  go  to 
the  shop,  and  so  loses  his  job.  "Betty"  is  the 
story  of  a  girl  who  falls  sick  just  before  the 
day  set  for  her  wedding,  and  is  taken  to  the 
hospital.  The  sketch  pictures  her  in  bed,  read- 
ing a  farewell  letter  from  her  lover  who  has 
deserted  her.  "Misery"  is  a  prose  poem,  writ- 
ten by  Libin  when  his  child  died.  It  has  no 
plot,  is  merely  the  outcry  of  a  simple,  wounded 

207 


heart,  telling  of  pain,  longing  and  wonder  at  the 
sad  mystery  of  the  world.  A  pleasing  rhythm 
runs  through  the  Yiddish,  and  as  the  author 
read  it  aloud  it  seemed,  indeed,  like  a  human 
document."  A  Child  of  the  Ghetto,"  one  of 
the  longest  and  most  detailed  of  all,  is  full  of  the 
sad,  tho  gently  satiric,  quality  of  Libin's  art.  The 

author  meets  a 
pedler  on  Ludlow 
Street,  who  rec- 
ognizes him  as 
the  man  who 
once  saved  his 
life  by  attracting 
to  himself  the 
snow -balls  of  a 
number  of  ur- 
chins who  had 
been  plaguing 
the  pedler  one 
cold  winter 


HE  WAS  BEWITCHED  BY  MATHEMATICS 


cart  man  how  he  is  getting  on  in  the  world.  The 
pedler  repHes  that  all  of  his  class  have  their  trou- 
bles— the  fruit  quickly  spoils,  and  the  bees"  (po- 
licemen) come  around  regularly  for  some  of  the 
"honey."  But  he  has  a  sorrow  all  to  himself. 
His  oldest  son  is  a  mathematician,  and  no  good. 
When  in  the  Jewish  school  in  Russia  the  little 
fellow  had  learned  to  figure,  and  had  been  fig- 
uring ever  since.  His  father  had  found,  much  to 
his  disappointment,  that  in  America  also  the 
boy  would  have  to  spend  some  time  in  school. 
The  ''monkey  business"  of  learning  had  ruined 
the  child.  He  was  bewitched  by  mathematics 
and  studied  all  day  long.  Sent  successively  to  a 
sweat-shop,  a  grocery,  to  tend  a  push-cart,  he 
proved  thoroughly  incapable  of  learning  any 
trade  ;  was  absent-minded  and  constantly  calcu- 
lating, and  always  lost  his  job.  And  his  old 
father  bemoaned  the  misfortune  all  day  long  as 
he  sold  his  bananas  on  Ludlow  Street. 

Younger  than  Libin,  less  mature  and  less 
devoted  to  his  art,  with  a  very  limited  amount  of 
work  done  ;  simpler  and  more  naive,  if  possible, 
than  the  older  man,  is  Levin,  a  typesetter  in  the 
office  of  ^ormj'arts.  His  sketches  are  swifter  and 
shorter  than  those  of  Libin,  more  effective  and 
dramatic  in  form,  with  greater  conventional  relief 
of  surprises  and  antitheses,  but  they  have  not  so 

209 


much  feeling  and  do  not  manifest  so  high  a  de- 
gree of  reaHstic  art.  In  contrast  with  Libin,  who 
aims  only  for  the  quiet  picture  of  ordinary  life, 
Levin  seeks  the  poignant  moment  in  the  flow  of 
daily  events.  With  more  of  a  commercial  atti- 
tude toward  his  work,  Levin  is,  consequently,  in 
more  comfortable  circumstances.  Like  Libin,  he 
has  worked  in  the  shops,  is  uneducated  and  has 
married  a  tailor  girl.  Like  Libin,  again,  he  takes 
his  subjects  from  the  sweat-shop,  the  tenement 
house  and  the  street.  He  is  a  handsome,  ingen- 
uous young  fellow  of  twenty-two  years.  Only 
eight  of  these  have  been  spent  in  America,  yet 
in  this  short  time  he  has  worked  himself  into  the 
life  of  Hester  and  Suffolk  streets  to  such  an  ex- 
tent that  his  short  sketches  give  most  faithful 
glimpses  of  various  little  points  of  human  nature 
as  it  shapes  itself  on  the  east  side. 

Where  Is  She?"  is  a  striking  and  typical 
incident  in  the  career  of  a  push-cart  pedler. 
The  itinerant  seller  of  fruit  is  doing  some  hard 
thinking  one  day  in  Hester  Street.  He  is  wor- 
ried about  something,  and  does  not  display  the 
activity  necessary  for  a  successful  merchant  of 
his  class.  A  vivid  picture  of  the  street  is  given 
— the  passers-by,  the  tenement-houses,  the  heat. 
He  knows  that  his  business  is  suffering,  but  his 
thoughts  dwell,  in  spite  of  himself,  with  his  wife, 


who  is  about  to  be  confined,  perhaps  that  very 
day.  Yesterday  she  had  done  the  washing,  but 
on  this  day,  for  the  first  time,  remained  in  bed. 
But  he  must  go  to  the  street,  as  usual.  Other- 
wise, his  bananas  would  spoil.  He  worries,  too, 
about  the  condition  of  his  children,  left  without 
the  care  of  their  mother.  A  woman  crosses  the 
street  to  inspect  his  bananas.  Perhaps  a  buyer, 
he  thinks,  and  concentrates  his  attention.  She 
selects  the  best  bananas,  those  that  will  keep 
the  longest,  and  asks  the  price.  "  Two  for  a 
cent,"  he  says.  "Too  much,"  she  replied.  I 
will  give  you  two  cents  for  five."  That  is  less 
than  they  cost  him,  and  he  refuses,  and  she  goes 
away,  and  then  he  is  sorry  he  had  not  sold.  Just 
then  his  little  daughter  runs  hatless,  breathless 
up  to  him.  "Mamma,"  she  says,  and  weeps. 
She  can  say  no  more.  He  leaves  her  with  the 
cart  and  runs  to  the  tenement-house,  finds  his 
little  boy  playing  on  the  floor,  but  his  wife  gone. 
He  rushes  distractedly  out,  looks  up  the  stairs, 
and  sees  clothes  hanging  on  a  line  on  the  roof, 
where  he  goes  and  finds  his  wife.  She  had  left 
the  bed  in  order  to  dry  the  wash  of  the  day 
before,  and  was  unable  to  return.  He  carries 
her  back  to  bed  and  returns  to  his  push-cart. 

"Put  Off  Again"  is  the  story  of  a  man  and  a 
girl  who  try  to  save  enough  money  from  their 

212 


work  in  the  sweat-shop  to  marry.  They  need 
only  a  couple  of  hundred  dollars  for  clothes  and 
furniture,  and  have  saved  almost  that  sum  when 
a  letter  comes  from  the  girl's  mother  in  Russia : 
her  husband  is  dead  after  a  long  illness,  and  she 
needs  money.  The  girl  sends  her  $70,  and  the 
wedding  is  put  off.  The  next  time  it  is  the  girl's 
brother  who  arrives  in  New  York  and  borrows 
$50  to  make  a  start  in  business.  When  they 
are  again  ready  for  the  wedding,  and  the  day 
set,  the  young  fellow  quarrels  with  the  sweat- 
shop boss,  and  is  discharged.  That  is  the 
evening  before  the  day  set  for  the  wedding,  and 
the  young  man  calls  on  the  girl  and  tells  her. 
"We  must  put  it  off  again,  Jake,"  she  says,  "till 
you  get  another  job."  They  cling  to  each  other 
and  are  silent  and  sad. 

A  sketch  so  simple  that  it  seems  almost  child- 
ish is  called  "The  Bride  Weeps."  It  is  a  hot 
evening,  and  the  people  in  the  quarter  are  all 
out  on  their  stoops.  There  are  swarms  of  chil- 
dren about,  and  a  bride  and  groom  are  embrac- 
ing each  other  and  watching  the  crowd.  "  Poor 
people,"  says  the  bride  reflectively,  "ought  not 
to  have  children."  "What  do  you  know  about 
it  ?  "  asks  the  groom,  rather  piqued.  Their  pleas- 
ure is  dampened,  and  she  goes  to  bed  and  wets 
her  pillow  with  tears. 

213 


"Fooled,"  one  of  the  most  interesting  of  Le- 
vin's sketches,  is  the  tale  of  an  umbrella  pedler. 
It  is  very  hot  in  the  Ghetto,  and  everybody  is 
uncomfortable,  but  the  umbrella  pedler  is  more 
uncomfortable  than  any  one  else.  He  hates  the 
bright  sun  that  interferes  with  his  business.  It 
has  not  rained  for  weeks,  and  his  stock  in  trade 
is  all  tied  up  in  the  house.  He  has  no  money, 
and  wishes  he  were  back  in  Russia,  where  it 
sometimes  rains.  He  goes  back  to  his  apart- 
ment and  sits  brooding  with  his  wife.  "When 
are  you  going  to  buy  us  some  candy,  papa?" 
ask  the  children.  Suddenly  his  wife  sees  a  cloud 
in  the  sky,  and  they  all  rush  joyfully  to  the 
window.  The  sun  disappears,  and  the  clouds 
continue  to  gather.  The  wife  goes  out  to  buy 
some  food,  the  children  say,  "  Papa  is  going  to 
the  street  now,  and  will  bring  us  some  candy  "  ; 
and  the  pedler  unpacks  his  stock  of  umbrellas 
and  puts  on  his  rubber  boots.  But  the  clouds 
roll  away,  and  the  hated  sun  comes  out  again, 
and  the  pedler  takes  off  his  boots  and  puts  his 
pack  away.  "  Ain't  you  going  to  the  street, 
papa?"  ask  the  children  sorrowfully.  "No," 
replies  the  pedler,  "  God  has  played  a  joke  on 
me. 

Libin  and  Levin,  altho  they  differ  in  the  way 
described,  are  yet  to  be  classed  together  in 

214 


essentials.  They  are  both  simple,  uneducated 
men  who  write  unpretentious  sketches  about  a 
life  they  intimately  know.  They  picture  the 
conditions  almost  naively  without  comment  and 
without  subtlety.  Libin,  in  a  way  to  draw 
tears,  Levin  with  the  buoyant  optimism  of 
healthy  youth,  notice  the  quiet  things  in  the 
every-day  life  of  the  Yiddish  quarter  that  are 
touching  and  effective. 

A  CULTIVATED  LITERARY  MAN 

Contrasting  definitely  with  the  sketches  of 
Libin  and  Levin  are  those  of  Jacob  Gordin,  who, 
altho  he  is  best  known  in  the  Ghetto  as  a  play- 
wright, has  yet  written  voluminously  for  the 
newspapers.  Unlike  the  other  two,  Gordin  is  a 
well-educated  man,  knowing  thoroughly  several 
languages  and  literatures,  including  Greek,  Rus- 
sian and  German.  His  greater  resources  of 
culture  and  his  sharper  natural  wit  have  made  of 
him  by  far  the  most  practised  writer  of  the  lot. 
With  many  literary  examples  before  him,  he 
knows  the  tricks  of  the  trade,  is  skilful  and 
effective,  has  a  wide  range  of  subjects  and  is  full 
of  'Mdeas "  in  the  semi-philosophical  sense. 
The  innocent  Libin  and  Levin  are  children  in 
comparison,  and  yet  their  sketches  show  greater 

215 


fidelity  to  the  facts  than  do  those  of  the  talented 
Gordin,  who  is  too  apt  to  employ  the  ordinary 
literary  devices  wherever  he  can  find  them,  car- 
ing primarily  for  the  effect  rather  than  for  the 
truth,  and  almost  always  heightening  the  color 
to  an  unnatural  and  pretentious  pitch.  In  the 
drama  Gordin's  tendency  toward  the  sensational 
is  more  in  place.  He  has  the  sense  of  character 
and  theatrical  circumstance,  and  works  along 
the  broad  lines  demanded  by  the  stage ;  but 
these  qualities  when  transferred  to  stories  from 
the  life  result  in  what  is  sometimes  called  in  the 
Ghetto  onion  literature."  So  definitely  theat- 
rical, indeed,  are  many  of  his  sketches  that  they 
are  sometimes  read  aloud  by  the  actors  to 
crowded  Jewish  audiences.  Another  point  that 
takes  from  Gordin's  interest  to  us  as  a  sketch- 
writer  is  that  his  best  stories  have  Russia  rather 
than  New  York  as  a  background ;  that  his 
sketches  from  New  York  life  are  comparatively 
unconvincing.  He  has  a  great  contempt  for 
America,  which  he  satirizes  in  some  of  his 
sketches,  particularly  the  political  aspect,  and 
intends  some  day  to  return  to  Russia,  where  he 
had  a  considerable  career  as  a  short-story  writer 
in  the  Russian  language.  He  is  forty-nine  years 
old,  and,  compared  with  the  other  men,  is  in 
comfortable  circumstances,  as  he  now  makes  a 

216 


good  income  from  his  plays,  which  grow  in 
popularity  in  the  quarter.  Before  coming  to 
America  he  taught  school  and  wrote  for  several 
newspapers  in  Russia,  where  he  was  known  as 
Ivan  der  Beissende,"  on  account  of  the  sharp 
character  of  his  feuilletons.  He  came  to  this 
country  in  1891,  and  shortly  after,  his  first  play, 
Siberia^  was  produced  and  made  a  great  hit 
among  the  'intellectuals"  and  Socialists  of  the 
quarter.  He  began  immediately  to  write  for  the 
Socialist  newspapers,  and  also  established  a 
short-lived  weekly  periodical  in  the  Russian 
language,  which  he  wrote  almost  entirely  him- 
self. 

Nipped  Romance"  is  a  story  of  two  chil- 
dren who  are  collecting  coals  on  a  railway  track. 
The  boy  of  thirteen  and  the  girl  of  eleven  talk 
about  their  respective  families,  laying  bare  the 
sordidness,  misery  and  vice  in  which  their  young 
lives  are  encompassed.  They  know  more  than 
children  ought  to  know,  and  insensibly  develop 
a  sentimental  interest  in  each  other,  when  a 
train  comes  along  and  kills  them.  "Without 
a  Pass,"  sometimes  recited  in  the  theatre  by 
the  actor,  Moshkovitch,  pictures  with  grue- 
some detail  a  girl  working  in  the  sweat-shop. 
The  brutal  doorkeeper  refuses  to  let  her  go  out 
for  relief  without  a  pass,  and  she  dies  of  weak- 

217 


ness,  hunger  and  cold.  ''  A  Tear,"  one  of  the 
best,  is  the  tale  of  an  old  Jewish  woman  who 
has  come  to  New  York  to  visit  her  son.  He  is 
married  to  a  Gentile,  and  the  old  lady  is  so  much 
abused  by  her  daughter-in-law  that  she  goes 
back  to  Russia.  The  sketch  represents  her 
alone  at  the  pier,  about  to  embark.  She  sees 
the  friends  of  the  other  passengers  crowding  the 
landing,  but  no  one  is  there  to  say  good-by  to 
her ;  and  as  the  ship  moves  away  a  tear  rolls 
down  her  cheek  to  the  deck.  Who  Laughs?" 
satirizes  the  Americans  who  laugh  at  Russian 
Jews  because  of  their  beards,  dress  and  accent. 
Another  sketch  denounces  the  **new  woman" — 
she  who  apes  American  manners,  lays  aside  her 
Jewish  wig,  becomes  flippant  and  interested  in 
movements."  Still  another  is  a  highly  colored 
contrast  between  woman's  love  and  that  of  less- 
devoted  man.  A  story  illustrating  how  the 
author's  desire  to  make  an  effect  sometimes 
results  in  the  ludicrous  is  the  would-be  pathetic  " 
wail  of  a  calf  which  is  about  to  be  slaughtered. 

AMERICAN  LIFE  THROUGH  RUSSIAN 

EYES 

In  connection  with  Gordin,  two  other  writers  of 
talent  who  work  on  the  Yiddish  newspapers  may 
be  briefly  mentioned,  altho  one  of  them  has  writ- 

218 


ten  as  yet  nothing  and  the  other  comparatively 
little  that  is  based  on  the  life  of  New  York. 
They  are,  as  is  Gordin  in  his  best  sketches, 
Russian  not  only  in  form,  but  also  in  material. 
David  Pinsky,  who  did  general  translating  and 
critical  work  on  the  Abendblati  until  a  few  months 
ago,  when  that  newspaper  died,  has  been  in  New 
York  only  a  little  more  than  a  year,  and  has  writ- 
ten very  little  about  the  local  quarter.  He  has 
not  even  as  yet  approached  near  enough  to  the 
New  York  life  to  realize  that  there  are  any  spe- 
cial conditions  to  portray.  He  is  the  author,  how- 
ever, of  good  sketches  in  German  and  is  some- 
what different  in  the  character  of  his  inspiration 
from  the  other  men.  They  are  close  adherents 
of  the  tradition  of  Russian  realism,  while  he  is 
under  the  influence  of  the  more  recent  European 
faith  that  disclaims  all  "schools"  in  literature. 
His  stories,  altho  they  remain  faithful  to  the  sad 
life  portrayed,  yet  show  greater  sentimentality 
and  some  desire  to  bring  forward  the  attractive 
side. 

The  other  of  these  two  writers,  B.  Gorin,  knew 
his  Russian-Jewish  life  so  intimately  before  he 
came  to  New  York,  seven  years  ago,  that  he 
has  continued  to  draw  from  that  source  the 
material  of  his  best  stories  ;  altho  he  has  written 
a  good  deal  about  Yiddish  New  York.  His 

2  i9 


sketches  have  the  ordinary  Russian  merit  of 
fidelity  in  detail  and  unpretentiousness  of  style. 
Compared  with  the  other  writers  in  New  York, 
he  is  more  elaborate  in  his  workmanship.  More 
mature  than  Libin,  he  is  free  from  Gordin's 
artistic  insincerity.  He  has  been  the  editor  of 
several  Yiddish  papers  in  the  quarter,  and  has 
contributed  to  nearly  all  of  them. 

Of  Gorin's  stories  which  touch  the  Russian- 
Jewish  conditions  in  New  York,  Yom  Kippur  " 
is  one  of  the  most  notable.  It  is  the  tale  of  a  pious 
Jewish  woman  who  joins  her  husband  in  America 
after  he  has  been  there  several  years.  The  details 
of  the  way  in  which  she  left  the  old  country,  how 
she  had  to  pass  herself  off  on  the  steamer  as  the 
wife  of  another  man,  her  difficulties  with  the 
inspecting  officers,  etc.,  give  the  impression  of  a 
life  strange  to  the  Gentile  world.  On  arriving  in 
America,  she  finds  her  husband  and  his  friends 
fallen  away  from  the  old  faith.  He  had  shaved 
off  his  beard,  had  grown  to  be  slack  about  the 

kosher"  preparation  of  food  and  the  observ- 
ance of  the  religious  holidays,  no  longer  was 
careful  about  the  morning  ablutions,  worked  on 
the  Sabbath  and  compelled  her  to  take  off  the 
wig  which  every  orthodox  Jewish  woman  must 
wear.  She  soon  fell  under  the  new  influence 
and  felt  herself  drifting  generally  into  the  un- 


godly  ways  of  the  New  World.  On  the  day  of 
the  great  "White  Feast"  she  found  herself  eat- 
ing when  she  should  have  fasted.  On  Yom  Kip- 
pur,  the  Day  of  Atonement,  the  sense  of  her  sins 
overpowered  her  quite. 

"Yom  Kippur !  Now  the  children  of  Israel 
are  all  massed  together  in  every  corner  of  the 
globe.  They  are  congregated  in  synagogues 
and  prayer-houses,  their  eyes  swollen  with  cry- 
ing, their  voices  hoarse  from  wailing  and  suppli- 
cating, their  broken  hearts  full  of  repentance. 
They  all  stand  now  in  their  funeral  togas,  like  a 
throng  of  newly  arisen  dead." 

She  grows  delirious  and  imagines  that  her 
father  and  mother  come  to  her  successively  and 
reproach  her  for  her  degeneracy.  In  a  series  of 
frightful  dreams,  all  bearing  on  her  repentance, 
the  atmosphere  of  the  story  is  rendered  so  in- 
tense that  her  death,  which  follows,  seems 
entirely  natural. 

The  theme  of  one  of  Gorin's  longer  stories  on 
Jewish-American  life  is  of  a  young  Jew  who  had 
married  in  the  old  country  and  had  come  to  New 
York  alone  to  make  his  fortune.  If  he  had  re- 
mained in  Russia,  he  would  have  lived  happily 
with  his  wife,  but  in  America  he  acquired  new 
ideas  of  life  and  new  ideals  of  women  ;  and, 
therefore,  felt  alienated  from  her  when  she  joined 

221 


him  in  the  New  World.  Many  children  came  to 
them,  his  wages  as  a  tailor  diminished  and  his 
wife  grew  constantly  less  congenial.  He  re- 
mained with  her,  however,  from  a  sense  of  duty 
for  eleven  years,  when,  after  insuring  his  life,  he 
committed  suicide. 

A  SATIRIST  OF  TENEMENT  SOCIETY 

Leon  Kobrin  stands  midway  between  Libin 
and  Levin,  on  the  one  hand,  and  Gordin  on 

the  other.  He  carries  his  Russian  traditions 
more  intimately  with  him  than  do  Libin  and 
Levin,  but  more  nearly  approaches  to  a  satu- 
rated exposition  in  fiction  form  of  the  life  of  Yid- 
dish New  York  than  does  Gordin.  Unlike  the 
latter,  he  has  the  pretence  rather  than  the  re- 
ality of  learning,  and  the  reality  rather  than  the 
pretence  of  realistic  art.  Yet  he  never  quite 
attains  to  the  untutored  fidelity  of  Libin.  Many 
of  his  sketches  are  satirical,  some  are  rather 
burlesque  descriptions  of  Ghetto  types,  and 
some  suggest  the  sad  "problem"  element  which 
runs  through  Russian  literature.  He  was  born 
in  Russia  in  1872  of  poor  parents,  orthodox 
Jews,  who  sent  him  to  the  Hebrew  school,  of 
which  the  boy  was  never  very  fond,  but  preferred 
to  read  Russian  at  night  surreptitiously.  He 


found  some  good  friends,  who,  as  he  put  it, 
helped  me  to  the  Hght  through  Ghetto  dark- 
ness." Incidentally,  it  may  be  pointed  out  that 
the  intellectual  element  of  the  Ghetto — the  re- 
alists and  Socialists — think  that  progress  is 
possible  only  in  the  line  of  Russian  culture,  and 
that  to  remain  steadfast  to  Jewish  traditions  is 
to  remain  immersed  in  darkness.  So  Kobrin 
stiuggled  from  a  very  early  age  to  master  the 
Russian  language,  and  even  wrote  sketches  in 
that  tongue.  He,  like  Gordin,  refers  to  the  fact 
of  his  being  a  writer  in  Yiddish  apologetically  as 
something  forced  upon  him  by  circumstances. 
Unlike  Gorin,  however^  he  believes  in  the  liter- 
ary capacity  of  the  language,  with  which  he  was 
first  impressed  when  he  came  to  America  in  1892 
and  found  stories  by  Chekhov  translated  by 
Abraham  Cahan  and  others  into  Yiddish  and 
published  in  the  Arbeiterzeitung,  It  was  a  long 
time,  however,  before  Kobrin  definitely  identified 
himself  with  the  literary  calling.  He  first  went 
through  a  course  somewhat  similar  to  that  of 
the  boy  mathematician  in  the  sketch  by  Libin, 
described  above.  He  tried  the  sweat-shop,  but 
he  was  a  bungler  with  the  machines ;  then  he 
turned  his  hand  with  equal  awkwardness  to  the 
occupation  of  making  cigars;  failed  as  distinctly 
as  a  baker,  and  finally,  in  1894,  was  forced  into 

223 


literature,  and  began  writing  for  the  c/lrbeiier- 
zeitung* 

One  of  Kobrin's  sketches  deals  with  a  vulgar 
tailor  of  the  east  side,  who  is  painted  in  the 
ugliest  of  colors  and  is  as  disagreeable  an  indi- 
vidual as  the  hottest  anti-Semite  could  imagine. 
The  man,  who  is  the  **boss"  of  a  sweat-shop, 
meets  the  author  in  a  suburban  train,  scrapes 
his  acquaintance,  fawns  upon  him,  offers  him  a 
cigar  and  tells  about  how  well  he  is  doing  in 
New  York.  In  Russia,  where  he  had  made 
clothes  for  rich  people,  no  young  girl  would 
have  spoken  to  him  because  of  his  low  social 
position ;  but  in  the  new  country  young  women 
of  good  family  abroad  seek  employment  in  his 
shop,  and  are  often  dependent  on  him  not  only 
for  a  living,  but  in  more  indescribable  ways. 
Mr.  Kobrin  and  his  wife  refer  to  this  sketch  as 
the  "pig  story."  A  subtler  tale  is  the  picture  of 
a  domestic  scene.  Jake  has  returned  from  his 
work  and  sits  reading  a  Yiddish  newspaper. 
His  wife,  a  passionate  brunette,  is  working 
about  the  room,  and  every  now  and  then  glances 
at  the  apathetic  Jake  with  a  sigh.  She  remem- 
bers how  it  was  a  year  ago,  when  Jake  hung 
over  her,  devoted,  attentive;  and  now  he  goes 
out  almost  every  evening  to  the  "circle"  and 
returns  late.    She  tries  to  engage  him  in  con- 

224 


versation,  but  he  answers  in  monosyllables  and 
finally  says  he  is  going  out,  whereupon  she 
weeps  and  makes  a  scene.  "  He  is  not  the  same 
Jake,"  she  cries  bitterly.  After  some  words  in- 
tended to  comfort  her,  but  really  rubbing  in  the 
wound,  her  husband  goes  to  the  "circle,"  and 
the  wife  burns  the  old  love-letters  one  by  one; 
they  are  from  another  man,  she  feels,  and  are  a 
torture  to  her  now.  As  she  burns  the  letters 
the  tears  fall  and  sizzle  on  the  hot  stove.  It  is 
a  simple  scene,  but  moving:  what  Mr.  Kobrin 
calls  "a  small  slice  out  of  life."  An  amusing 
couple  of  sketches,  in  which  satire  approaches 
burlesque,  represent  the  infelicities  of  an  old 
woman  from  Russia  who  had  recently  arrived  in 
New  York.  One  day,  shocked  at  her  children's 
neglect  of  a  religious  holiday  and  at  their  general 
unholiness,  she  goes  to  visit  an  old  neighbor,  at 
whose  house  she  is  sure  to  have  everything 
"kosher"  and  right.  She  has  been  accustomed 
to  find  the  way  to  her  friend  by  means  of  a 
wooden  Indian,  called  by  her  a  "Turk,"  which 
stood  before  a  tobacco  shop.  The  Indian  has 
been  removed,  however,  and  she,  consequently, 
loses  her  way.  Seeing  a  Jew  with  big  whiskers, 
who  must,  therefore,  she  thinks,  be  orthodox, 
she  asks  him  where  the  "Turk"  is,  and  repeats 
the  question  in  vain  to  many  others,  among 

225 


them  to  a  policeman,  whom  she  addresses  in 
Polish,  for  she  thinks  that  all  Gentiles  speak 
that  language,  just  as  all  Jews  speak  Yid- 
dish. On  another  occasion  the  old  lady  goes 
to  the  theatre,  where  her  experiences  are  a 
Yiddish  counterpart  to  those  of  Partridge  at 
the  play. 

Some  of  the  best  sketches  from  the  life  form 
portions  of  the  plays  which  are  produced  at  the 
Yiddish  theatres  on  the  Bowery.  In  the  dramas 
of  Gordin  there  are  many  scenes  which  far  more 
faithfully  than  his  newspaper  sketches  mirror 
the  sordid  life  and  unhappy  problems  of  the  poor 
Russian  Jew  in  America ;  and  the  ability  of  the 
actors  to  enforce  the  theme  and  language  by 
realistic  dress,  manner  and  intonation  makes 
these  scenes  frequently  a  genuine  revelation  to 
the  Gentile  of  a  new  world  of  social  conditions. 
Kobrin  and  Libin,  too,  have  written  plays,  very 
few  and  undramatic  as  compared  with  those  of 
Gordin,  but  abounding  in  the  sketch  "  element, 
in  scenes  which  give  the  setting  and  the  milieu  of 
a  large  and  important  section  of  humanity. 
Some  of  the  plays  of  Gordin  have  been  con- 
sidered in  a  previous  chapter,  and  those  of 
Kobrin  and  Libin  merely  add  more  material  to 
the  same  quality  which  runs  through  their 
newspaper  sketches.    Libin  is  the  author  of  two 

226 


plays,  The  Belated  Wedding  and  A  Vain  Sacrifice,  for 
which  he  was  paid  $50  apiece.  They  are  each  a 
series  of  pictures  from  the  miserable  Jewish  life 
in  the  New  York  Ghetto.  The  latter  play  is  the 
story  of  a  girl  who  marries  a  man  she  hates  in 
order  to  get  money  for  her  consumptive  father. 
The  theme  of  The  Belated  Wedding  is  too  sordid  to 
relate.  Both  plays  are  unrelieved  gloom  and 
lack  any  compensating  dramatic  quality.  In 
Kobrin's  plays — The  East  Side  Ghetto,  East  Broad- 
m)ay  and  the  Broken  Chains — the  problem  element 
is  more  decided  and  the  dramatic  structure  is 
more  pronounced  than  in  those  of  Libin.  In 
East  Broadway  a  young  man  and  girl  have  been 
devoted  to  each  other  and  to  the  cause  of  Nihil- 
ism in  Russia,  but  in  New  York  the  husband 
catches  the  spirit  of  the  American  "business 
man  "  and  demands  from  his  father-in-law  the 
money  promised  as  a  dot*  The  eloquence  of  the 
new  point  of  view  is  opposed  to  that  of  the  old 
in  a  manner  not  entirely  undramatic. 

The  fact  that  there  are  a  number  of  writers 
for  the  Yiddish  newspapers  of  New  York  who 
are  animated  with  a  desire  to  give  genuine 
glimpses  of  the  real  life  of  the  people  is  partic- 
ularly interesting,  perhaps,  because  of  the  light 
which  it  throws  on  the  character  of  their  Jewish 
readers  and  the  breadth  of  culture  which  it 

227 


implies.  Certainly,  there  are  many  Russian 
Jews  on  the  east  side  who  like  to  read  anything 
which  seems  to  them  to  be  natural,"  a  word 
which  is  often  on  their  lips.  It  would  be  mis- 
leading, however,  to  reach  conclusions  very 
optimistic  in  regard  to  the  Ghetto  Jews  as  a 
whole ;  for  the  demand  which  makes  these 
sketches  possible  is  practically  limited  to  the 
Socialists,  and  grows  less  as  that  political  and 
intellectual  movement  falls  off,  under  American 
influences,  in  vitality.  To-day  there  are  fewer 
good  sketches  published  in  the  Yiddish  news- 
papers than  formerly,  when  the  Arbeiterzeitung 
was  a  power  for  social  and  literary  improve- 
ment. Quarrels  among  the  Socialists,  resulting 
in  many  weakening  splits,  and  the  growth  of  a 
more  constant  commercial  attitude  on  the  part 
of  the  newspapers  than  formerly  are  partly  re- 
sponsible for  the  change.  The  few  men  of  talent 
who,  under  the  stimulus  of  an  editorial  demand 
for  sincere  art,  wrote  in  the  early  days  with  a 
full  heart  and  entire  conviction  have  now  partly 
lost  interest.  Levin  has  given  up  writing  alto- 
gether for  the  more  remunerative  work  of  a 
typesetter,  Gorin  has  become  largely  a  trans- 
lator and  literary  hack  on  the  regular  newspaper 
staff,  and  Gordin  and  Kobrin  have  turned  their 
attention  to  the  writing  of  plays,  for  which 

228 


there  is  a  vital,  if  crude,  demand.  Libin  alone, 
the  most  interesting  and  in  a  genuine  way  the 
most  talented  of  them  all,  remains  the  poor- 
est in  worldly  goods  and  the  most  devoted  to 
his  art. 


229 


ChoLpter  £ight 


91  iEotjeltst 

Altho  Abraham  Cahan  began  his  literary  ca- 
reer as  a  Yiddish  writer  for  the  Ghetto  news- 
papers his  important  work  has  been  written  and 
pubHshed  in  English.  His  work  as  a  Yiddish 
writer  was  of  an  almost  exclusively  educational 
character.  This  at  once  establishes  an  impor- 
tant distinction  between  him  and  the  Yiddish 
sketch-writers  considered  in  the  foregoing  chap- 
ter. A  still  more  vital  distinction  is  that  arising 
from  the  relative  quality  of  his  work,  which  as 
opposed  to  that  of  the  Yiddish  writers,  is  more 
of  the  order  of  the  story  or  of  the  novel  than  of 
the  sketch.  Cahan's  work  is  more  developed 
and  more  mature  as  art  than  that  of  the  other 
men,  who  remain  essentially  sketch-writers. 
Even  in  their  longer  stories  what  is  good  is  the 
occasional  flash  of  life,  the  occasional  picture, 
and  this  does  not  imply  characters  and  theme 
developed  sufficiently  to  put  them  in  the  cate- 
gory of  the  novel.  Rather  than  for  the  art  they 
reveal  they  are  interesting  for  the  sincere  way  in 

230 


which  they  present  a  life  intimately  known.  In 
fact  the  literary  talent  of  the  Ghetto  consists 
almost  exclusively  in  the  short  sketch.  To  this 
general  rule  Abraham  Cahan  comes  the  nearest 
to  forming  an  exception.  Even  in  his  work  the 
sketch  element  predominates ;  but  in  one  long 
story  at  least  something  more  is  successfully 
achieved ;  in  his  short  stories  there  is  often 
much  circumstance  and  development ;  and  he 
has  now  finished  the  first  draft  of  a  long  novel. 
His  stories  have  appeared  from  time  to  time  in 
the  leading  English  magazines,  and  there  are 
two  volumes  with  which  the  discriminating 
American  and  English  public  is  familiar,  Yekt 
and  The  Imported  Bridegroom  and  Other  Stories*  As 
well  as  his  work  Cahan's  life  too  is  of  unusual 
interest.  He  had  a  picturesque  career  as  a 
Socialist  and  an  editor  in  the  Ghetto. 

Abraham  Cahan  was  born  in  Vilna,  the  capital 
of  Lithuania,  Russia,  in  i860.  He  went  as  a  boy 
to  the  Jewish  ''chaider,"  but  took  an  early  and 
overpowering  interest  in  the  Russian  language 
and  ideas.  He  graduated  from  the  Teache/s 
Institute  at  Vilna,  and  was  appointed  government 
teacher  in  the  town  of  Velizh,  Province  of  Vi- 
tebsk. Here  he  became  interested,  altho  not 
active,  in  the  anarchistic  doctrines  which  filled 
the  intellectual  atmosphere  of  the  day  ;  and,  feel- 

231 


ing  that  his  liberty  and  activity  were  endangered 
by  a  longer  sojourn  in  Russia,  he  came  to  Amer- 
ica in  1882,  when  a  time  of  severe  poverty  and 
struggle  ensued. 

From  the  first  he,  like  most  Russian  Jews  of 
intelHgence,  was  identified  with  the  Socialist 
movement  in  the  New  York  Ghetto ;  he  threw 
himself  into  it  with  extraordinary  activity 
and  soon  became  a  leader  in  the  quarter.  He 
was  an  eloquent  and  impassioned  speaker,  went 
twice  abroad  as  the  American-Jewish  delegate 
to  Socialist  congresses,  and  was  the  most  influ- 
ential man  connected  with  the  weekly  c/lrbeiter- 
zeitung,  of  which  he  became  editor  in  1893.  This 
paper,  as  has  been  explained  in  a  former  chap- 
ter, for  several  years  carried  on  an  aggressive 
warfare  in  the  cause  of  labor  and  Socialism,  and 
attempted  also  to  educate  the  people  to  an 
appreciation  of  the  best  realistic  Russian  wri- 
ters, such  as  Tolstoi,  Turgenieff  and  Chekhov. 
It  was  under  Cahan's  editorship  of  this  weekly, 
and  also  of  the  monthly  Zukunfi,  a  journal  of 
literature  and  social  science,  that  some  of  the 
realistic  sketch-writers  of  the  quarter  discovered 
their  talent ;  and  for  a  time  both  literature  and 
Socialism  were  as  vigorous  as  they  were  young 
in  the  colony. 

Literature,  however,  was  at   that  time  to 

232 


Cahan  only  the  handmaiden  of  education.  His 
career  as  an  east  side  writer  was  that  primarily 
of  the  teacher.  He  wished  not  merely  to  edu- 
cate the  ignorant  masses  of  the  people  in  the 
doctrines  of  Socialism,  but  to  teach  them  the 
rudiments  of  science  and  literature.  For  that 
reason  he  wrote  in  the  popular  ''jargon,"  pop- 
ularized science,  wrote  Socialistic  articles,  ex- 
horted generally.  Occasionally  he  published 
humorous  sketches,  intended,  however,  always 
to  point  a  moral  or  convey  some  needed  infor- 
mation. In  literature,  as  such,  he  was  not  at 
that  time  interested  as  an  author.  It  was  only 
several  years  later,  when  he  took  up  his  English 
pen,  that  he  attempted  to  put  into  practise  the 
ideas  about  what  constitutes  real  literature  to 
which  he  had  been  trying  to  educate  the  Ghetto. 

The  fierce  individualism  which  in  spite  of 
Socialistic  doctrine  is  a  characteristic  of  the 
intellectual  element  in  the  Ghetto  soon  brought 
about  its  weakening  effects.  The  inevitable  oc- 
curred. Quarrels  grew  among  the  Socialists,  the 
party  was  split,  each  faction  organized  a  Socialist 
newspaper,  and  the  movement  consequently  lost 
in  significance  and  general  popularity.  In  1896 
Cahan  resigned  his  editorship,  and  retired  dis- 
gusted from  the  work. 

From  that  time  on  his  interest  in  Socialism 

233 


waned,  altho  he  still  ranges  himself  under  that 
banner ;  and  his  other  absorbing  interest,  real- 
istic literature,  grew  apace,  until  it  now  absorbs 
everything  else.  As  is  the  case  with  many 
imaginative  and  emotional  men  he  is  predomi- 
nantly of  one  intellectual  passion.  When  he  was 
an  active  Socialist  he  wanted  to  be  nothing  else. 
He  gave  up  his  law  studies,  and  devoted  himself 
to  an  unremunerative  public  work.  When  the 
fierce  but  small  personal  quarrels  began  which 
brought  about  the  present  confused  condition  of 
Socialism  in  the  Ghetto,  Cahan's  always  strong 
admiration  for  the  Russian  writers  of  genius  and 
their  literary  school  led  him  to  experiment  in 
the  English  language,  which  gave  a  field  much 
larger  than  the  ''jargon. "  Always  a  reformer, 
always  filled  with  some  idea  which  he  wished  to 
propagate  through  the  length  and  breadth  of  the 
land,  Cahan  took  up  the  cause  of  realism  in 
English  fiction  with  the  same  passion  and  en- 
ergy with  which  he  had  gone  in  for  Socialism. 
He  became  a  partisan  in  literature  just  as  he 
had  been  a  partisan  in  active  life.  He  admired 
among  Americans  W.  D.  Howells,  who  seemed  to 
him  to  write  in  the  proper  spirit,  but  he  felt  that 
Americans  as  a  class  were  hopelessly  "roman- 
tic," "unreal,"  and  undeveloped  in  their  literary 
tastes  and  standards.    He  set  himself  to  writing 

234 


stories  and  books  in  English  which  should  at 
least  be  genuine  artistic  transcripts  from  life, 
and  he  succeeded  admirably  in  keeping  out  of 
his  work  any  obvious  doctrinaire  element — which 
points  to  great  artistic  self-restraint  when  one 
considers  how  full  of  his  doctrine  the  man  is. 

Love  of  truth,  indeed,  is  the  quality  which 
seems  to  a  stranger  in  the  Ghetto  the  great 
virtue  of  that  section  of  the  city.  Truth,  pleasant 
or  unpleasant,  is  what  the  best  of  them  desire. 
It  is  true  that,  in  the  reaction  from  the  usual 
"affable"  literature  of  the  American  book-mar- 
ket, these  realists  rather  prefer  the  unpleasant. 
That,  however,  is  a  sign  of  energy  and  youth. 
A  vigorous  youthful  literature  is  always  more 
apt  to  breathe  the  spirit  of  tragedy  than  a  liter- 
ature more  mature  and  less  fresh.  And  after  all, 
the  great  passion  of  the  intellectual  quarter  re- 
sults in  the  consciously  held  and  warmly  felt 
principle  that  literature  should  be  a  transcript 
from  life.  Cahan  represents  this  feeling  in  its 
purest  aspect ;  and  is  therefore  highly  inter- 
esting not  only  as  a  man  but  as  a  type.  This 
passion  for  truth  is  deeply  infused  into  his  liter- 
ary work. 

The  aspects  of  the  Ghetto's  life  which  would 
naturally  hold  the  interest  of  the  artistic  ob- 
server are  predominatingly  its  characteristic 

235 


features — those  qualities  of  character  and  condi- 
tions of  social  life  which  are  different  from  the 
corresponding  ones  in  the  old  country.  Cahan 
came  to  America  a  mature  man  with  the  life  of 
one  community  already  a  familiar  thing  to  him. 
It  was  inevitable  therefore  that  his  literary  work 
in  New  York  should  have  consisted  largely  in 
fiction  emphasizing  the  changed  character  and 
habits  of  the  Russian  Jew  in  New  York ;  de- 
scribing the  conditions  of  immigration  and  de- 
picting the  clash  between  the  old  and  the  new 
Ghetto  and  the  way  the  former  insensibly 
changes  into  the  latter.  In  this  respect  Cahan 
presents  a  great  contrast  to  the  simple  Libin, 
who  merely  tells  in  heartfelt  passionate  way  the 
life  of  the  poor  sweat-shop  Jew  in  the  city,  with- 
out consciously  taking  into  account  the  relative 
nature  of  the  phenomena.  His  is  absolute  work 
as  far  as  it  goes,  as  straight  and  true  as  an 
arrow,  and  implies  no  knowledge  of  other  condi- 
tions. Cahan  presents  an  equally  striking  con- 
trast to  the  work  of  men  like  Gordin  and  Gorin, 
the  best  part  of  which  deals  with  Russian  rather 
than  New  York  life. 

If  Cahan's  work  were  merely  the  transcribing 
in  fiction  form  of  a  great  number  of  suggestive 
and  curious  ''points"  about  the  life  of  the  poor 
Russian  Jew  in  New  York,  it  would  not  of  course 

236 


have  any  great  interest  to  even  the  cultivated 
Anglo-Saxon  reader,  who,  tho  he  might  find  the 
stories  curious  and  amusing  for  a  time,  would 
recognize  nothing  in  them  sufficiently  familiar  to 
be  of  deep  importance  to  him.  If,  in  other 
words,  the  stories  had  lacked  the  universal  ele- 
ment always  present  in  true  literature  they 
would  have  been  of  very  little  value  to  anyone 
except  the  student  of  queer  corners.  When 
however  the  universal  element  of  art  is  present, 
when  the  special  conditions  are  rendered  sym- 
pathetic by  the  touch  of  common  human  nature, 
the  result  is  pleasing  in  spite  of  the  foreign 
element ;  it  is  even  pleasing  because  of  that 
element ;  for  then  the  pleasure  of  easily  under- 
standing what  is  unfamiliar  is  added  to  the  charm 
of  recognizing  the  old  objects  of  the  heart  and 
the  imagination. 

Cahan's  stories  may  be  divided  into  two  gen- 
eral classes  :  those  presenting  primarily  the  spe- 
cial conditions  of  the  Ghetto  to  which  the  story 
and  characters  are  subordinate ;  and  those  in 
which  the  special  conditions  and  the  story  fuse 
together  and  mutually  help  and  explain  one 
another.  These  two — the  "information"  ele- 
ment and  the  human  nature"  element — strug- 
gle for  the  mastery  throughout  his  work.  In 
the  most  successful  part  of  the  stories  the 

237 


"human  nature"  element  masters,  without  sup- 
pressing, that  of  special  information. 

The  substance  of  Cahan's  stories,  what  they 
have  deliberately  to  tell  us  about  the  New  York 
Ghetto,  is,  considering  the  limited  volume  of  his 
work,  rich  and  varied.  It  includes  the  descrip- 
tion of  much  that  is  common  to  the  Jews  of 
Russia  and  the  Jews  of  New  York — the  picture 
of  the  orthodox  Jew,  the  pious  rabbi,  the 
marriage  customs,  the  religious  holidays,  etc. 
But  the  orthodox  foreign  element  is  treated 
more  as  a  background  on  which  are  painted 
in  contrasting  lights  the  moral  and  physical 
forms  resulting  from  the  particular  colonial 
conditions.  The  falling  away  of  the  children  in 
filial  respect  and  in  religious  faith,  the  consequent 
despair  of  the  parents,  who  are  influenced  only 
in  superficial  ways  by  their  new  environment ; 
the  alienation  of  "progressive"  husbands  from 
"old-fashioned"  wives;  the  institution  of  "the 
boarder,"  a  source  of  frequent  domestic  trouble; 
the  tendency  of  the  "new  "  daughters  of  Israel  to 
select  husbands  for  themselves  in  spite  of  ancient 
authority  and  the  "  Vermittler,"  and  their  ambi- 
tion to  marry  doctors  and  lawyers  instead  of 
Talmudical  scholars ;  the  professional  letter-wri- 
ters through  whom  ignorant  people  in  the  old 
country  and  their  ignorant  relatives  here  corre- 

238 


spond  ;  the  falling-off  in  respect  for  the  Hebrew 
scholar  and  the  rabbi,  the  tendency  to  read  in 
the  Astor  Hbrary  and  do  other  dreadful  things 
implying  interest  in  American  life,  to  eat  treife 
food,  talk  American  slang,  and  hate  being  called 
a  "greenhorn,"  e,,  an  old-fashioned  Jew;  how 
a  "Mister"  in  Russia  becomes  a  "Shister" 
(shoemaker)  in  New  York,  and  a  ^'Shister"  in 
Russia  becomes  a  "Mister"  in  New  York;  how 
women  lay  aside  their  wigs  and  men  shave  their 
beards  and  ride  in  horse-cars  on  Saturday :  all 
these  things  and  more  are  told  in  more  or  less 
detail  in  Cahan's  English  stories.  Anyone  who 
followed  the  long  series  of  Barge  Office  sketches 
which  during  the  last  few  years  Cahan  has 
published  anonymously  in  the  Commercial  Adver- 
tiser, would  be  familiar  in  a  general  way  with  the 
different  types  of  Jews  who  come  to  this  country, 
with  the  reasons  for  their  immigration  and  the 
conditions  which  confront  them  when  they  ar- 
rive. Many  of  these  hastily  conceived  and  writ- 
ten newspaper  reports  have  plenty  of  life — are 
quick,  rather  formless,  flashes  of  humor  and 
pathos,  and  contain  a  great  deal  of  implicit  liter- 
ature. But  the  salient  quality  of  this  division  of 
Cahan's  work  is  the  amount  of  strange  and 
picturesque  information  which  it  conveys. 
Many  of  his  more  carefully  executed  stories 

239 


which  have  appeared  from  time  to  time  in  the 
magazines  are  loaded  down  with  a  like  quantity 
of  information,  and  while  all  of  them  have  marked 
vitality,  many  are  less  intrinsically  interesting, 
from  the  point  of  view  of  human  nature,  than 
even  the  Barge  Office  sketches.  A  marked 
instance  of  a  story  in  which  the  information 
element  overpoweringly  predominates  is  "  The 
Daughter  of  Reb  Avrom  Leib,"  published  in  the 
Cosmopolitan  Magazine  for  May,  1900.  The  tale 
opens  with  a  picture  of  Aaron  Zalkin,  who  is 
lonely.  It  is  Friday  evening,  and  for  the  first  time 
since  he  left  his  native  town  he  enters  a  syna- 
gogue. Then  we  have  a  succession  of  minutely 
described  customs  and  objects  which  are  inter- 
esting in  themselves  and  convey  no  end  of  "  local 
color."  We  learn  that  orthodox  Jewish  women 
have  wigs,  we  read  of  the  Holy  Ark,  the  golden 
shield  of  David,  the  illuminated  omud,  the  reading 
platform  in  the  centre,  the  faces  of  the  wor- 
shippers as  they  hum  the  Song  of  Songs,  and 
then  the  cantor  and  the  cantor's  daughter.  We 
follow  the  cantor  in  his  ceremonies  and  prayers. 
Zalkin  is  thrilled  by  the  ceremony  and  thrilled 
by  the  girl.  But  only  a  word  is  given  to  him 
before  the  story  goes  back  to  picturing  the 
scene,  Reb  Avrom  Leib's  song  and  the  actions 
of  the  congregation.    In  the  second  division  of 

240 


the  story  Zalkin  goes  again  the  next  Friday 
night  to  the  synagogue,  and  the  result  is  that 
he  wants^  to  marry  the  girl.  So  he  sends  a 
"marriage  agent"  to  the  cantor,  the  girl's 
father.  Then  he  goes  to  *Wiew  the  bride,"  and 
incidentally  we  learn  that  the  cantor  has  two 
sons  who  are  American  boys,"  and  "will  not 
turn  their  tongues  to  a  Hebrew  word."  When 
the  old  man  finds  that  Zalkin  is  a  Talmudic 
scholar  he  is  startled  and  delighted  and  wants 
him  for  a  son-in-law.  They  try  to  outquote 
one  another,  shouting  and  gesticulating  "in 
true  Talmudic  fashion."  There  is  a  short  scene 
between  the  two  young  people,  the  wedding-day 
is  deferred  till  the  "Nine  Days"  are  over, 
for  "who  would  marry  while  one  was  mourning 
the  Fall  of  the  Temple  ?  "  And  it  is  suggested 
that  Sophie  is  not  quite  content.  Then  there 
is  a  scene  where  Zalkin  chants  the  Prophets, 
where  the  betrothal  articles,  "a  mixture  of  Chal- 
daic  and  Hebrew,"  are  read  and  a  plate  is  thrown 
on  the  floor  to  make  a  severance  of  the  cere- 
mony "as  unlikely  as  would  be  the  reunion 
of  the  broken  plate."  Then  there  are  more 
quotations  from  the  cantor,  a  detailed  picture  of 
the  services  of  the  Day  of  Atonement,  of  the 
Rejoicing  of  the  Law,  blessing  the  Dedication 
Lights,  The  Days  of  Awe,  and  the  Rejoicing  of 

241 


the  Law  again.  The  old  man's  character  is 
made  very  vivid,  and  the  dramatic  situation — 
that  of  a  Jewish  girl  who,  after  the  death  of  her 
father,  marries  in  compliance  with  his  desire — 
is  picturesquely  handled.  But  the  theme  is  very 
slight.  Most  of  the  detail  is  devoted  to  making 
a  picture,  not  of  the  changing  emotions  in  the 
characters  and  the  development  of  the  human 
story,  but  of  the  religious  customs  of  the  Jews. 
The  emphasis  is  put  on  information  rather  than 
on  the  theme,  and  consequently  the  story  does 
not  hold  the  interest  strongly. 

Many  of  Cahan's  other  short  stories  suffer  be- 
cause of  the  learned  intention  of  the  author.  We 
derive  a  great  deal  of  information  and  we  gener- 
ally get  the  picture,"  but  it  often  requires  an 
effort  to  keep  the  attention  fixed  on  what  is  un- 
familiar and  at  the  same  time  so  apart  from  the 
substance  of  the  story  that  it  is  merely  subordi- 
nate detail. 

In  these  very  stories,  however,  there  is  much 
that  is  vigorous  and  fresh  in  the  treatment  and 
characterization  ;  and  a  vein  of  lyric  poetry  is 
frequent,  as  in  the  delightful  Ghetto  Wedding,  the 
story  of  how  a  poor  young  Jewish  couple  spend 
their  last  cent  on  an  elaborate  wedding-feast, 
expecting  to  be  repaid  by  the  presents,  and  thus 
enabled  to  furnish  their  apartment.    The  gifts 

242 


don't  turn  up,  only  a  few  guests  are  present,  and 
the  young  people,  after  the  ceremony,  go  home 
with  nothing  but  their  enthusiastic  love.  The 
na'i'vete  and  simplicity  of  the  lovers,  the  implicit 
sympathy  with  them,  and  a  kind  of  gentle 
satire,  make  this  little  story  a  gem  for  the  poet. 

The  Imported  Bridegroom  is  a  remarkable  char- 
acter sketch  and  contains  several  very  strong 
and  interesting  descriptions.  Asriel  Stroon  is 
the  central  figure  and  lives  before  the  mind  of 
the  reader.  He  is  an  old  Jew  who  has  made  a 
business  success  in  New  York,  and  retired,  when 
he  has  a  religious  awakening  and  at  the  same 
time  a  great  longing  for  his  old  Russian  home 
Pravly.  He  goes  back  to  Pravly  on  a  visit,  and 
the  description  of  his  sensations  the  day  he 
returns  to  his  home  is  one  of  the  best  examples 
of  the  essential  vitality  of  Cahan's  work.  This 
long  story  contains  also  a  most  amusing  scene 
where  Asriel  outbids  a  famous  rich  man  of  the 
town  for  a  section  in  the  synagogue  and  tri- 
umphs over  him,  too,  in  the  question  of  a  son-in- 
law.  There  is  in  Pravly  a  ''prodigy"  of  holiness 
and  Talmudic  learning,  Shaya,  whom  Reb  Lippe 
wants  for  his  daughter,  but  Asriel  wants  him 
too,  and  being  enormously  rich,  carries  him  off 
in  triumph  to  his  daughter  in  America.  But 
Flora  at  first  spurns  him.    He  is  a  "greenhorn," 

243 


a  scholar,  not  a  smart  American  doctor  such  as 
she  has  dreamed  of.  Soon,  however,  Shaya, 
who  is  a  great  student,  learns  English  and 
mathematics,  and  promises  Flora  to  become  a 
doctor.  The  first  thing  he  knows  he  is  a  free- 
thinker and  an  American,  and  Flora  now  loves 
him.  They  keep  the  terrible  secret  from  the  old 
man,  but  he  ultimately  sees  Shaya  going  into 
the  Astor  Library  and  eating  food  in  a  ireife 
restaurant.  His  resentment  is  pathetic  and 
intense,  but  the  children  marry,  and  the  old  man 
goes  to  Jerusalem  with  his  faithful  servant. 

The  book,  however,  in  which  there  is  a  perfect 
adaptation  of  "atmosphere  "  and  information  to 
the  dramatic  story  is  Yekt*  In  this  strong,  fresh 
work,  full  of  buoyant  life,  the  Ghetto  characters 
and  environment  form  an  integral  part. 

Yekl  indeed  ought  to  be  well  known  to  the 
English  reading  public.  It  is  a  book  written 
and  conceived  in  the  English  language,  is  essen- 
tially idiomatic  and  consequently  presents  no 
linguistic  difficulties.  It  gives  a  great  deal  of 
information  about  what  seems  to  me  by  far  the 
most  interesting  section  of  foreign  New  York. 
But  what  ought  to  count  more  than  anything 
else  is  that  it  is  a  genuine  piece  of  literature ; 
picturing  characters  that  live  in  art,  in  an  envi- 
ronment that  is  made  real,  and  by  means  of  a 

244 


story  that  is  vital  and  significant  and  that  never 
flags  in  interest.  In  its  quality  of  freshness  and 
buoyancy  it  recalls  the  work  of  Turgenieff. 
None  of  Cahan's  later  work,  tho  most  of  it  has 
vital  elements,  stands  in  the  same  class  with 
this  fundamentally  sweet  piece  of  literature.  It 
takes  a  worthy  place  with  the  best  Russian 
fiction,  with  that  school  of  writers  who  make  life 
actual  by  the  sincere  handling  of  detail  in  which 
the  simple  everyday  emotions  of  unspoiled  hu- 
man nature  are  portrayed.  The  English  classic 
novel,  greatly  superior  in  the  rounded  and  con- 
templative view  of  life,  has  yet  nothing  since 
Fielding  comparable  to  Russian  fiction  in  vivid 
presentation  of  the  details  of  life.  This  whole 
school  of  literature  can,  I  believe,  be  compared 
in  quality  more  fittingly  with  Elizabethan  drama 
than  anything  which  has  intervened  in  English 
literature ;  not  of  course  with  those  maturer 
dramas  in  which  there  is  a  great  philosophical 
treatment  of  human  life,  but  in  the  lyric  fresh- 
ness and  imaginative  vitality  which  were  com- 
mon to  the  whole  lot  of  Elizabethan  writers. 

YeM  is  alive  from  beginning  to  end.  The 
virtuosity  in  description  which  in  Cahan's  work 
sometimes  takes  the  place  of  literature,  is  here 
quite  subordinate.  Yekl  is  a  sweat-shop  Jew 
in  New  York  who  has  left  a  wife  and  child  in 

245 


Russia  in  order  to  make  a  little  home  for  them 
and  himself  in  the  new  world.  In  the  early  part 
of  the  book  he  is  becoming  an  ^'American"  Jew, 
making  a  little  money  and  taking  a  great  fancy 
to  the  smart  Jewish  girl  who  wears  a  rakish  " 
hat,  no  wig,  talks  "United  States,"  and  has  a 
profound  contempt  for  the  benighted  pious 
"greenhorns"  who  have  just  arrived.  A  sweat- 
shop girl  named  Mamie  moves  his  fancy  deeply, 
so  that  when  the  faithful  wife  Gitl  and  the  little 
boy  Yossele  arrive  at  the  Barge  Office  there  is 
evidently  trouble  at  hand.  At  that  place  Yekl 
meets  them  in  a  vividly  told  scene — ill-concealed 
disquiet  on  his  part  and  naive  alarm  at  the  situ- 
ation on  hers.  Gitl's  wig  and  her  subdued,  old- 
fashioned  demeanor  tell  terribly  on  Yekl's 
nerves,  and  she  is  shocked  by  everything  that 
happens  to  her  in  America.  Their  domestic 
unhappiness  develops  through  a  number  of  char- 
acteristic and  simple  incidents  until  it  results  in 
a  divorce.  But  by  that  time  Gitl  is  becoming 
"American  "  and  it  is  obvious  that  she  is  to  be 
taken  care  of  by  a  young  man  in  the  quarter 
more  appreciative  than  Yekl.  The  latter  finds 
himself  bound  to  Mamie,  the  pert  "American" 
girl,  and  as  the  book  closes  is  in  a  fair  way  to 
regret  the  necessity  of  giving  up  his  newly  ac- 
quired freedom.    This  simple,  strong  theme  is 

246 


A  SWEAT-SHOP  GIRL  MOVES  HIS  FANCY  DEEPLY 


treated  consistently  in  a  vital  presentative  way. 
The  idea  is  developed  by  natural  and  constant 
incident,  psychological  or  physical,  rather  than 
by  talk.  Every  detail  of  the  book  grows  nat- 
urally out  of  the  situation. 

"Unpleasant"  is  a  word  which  many  an 
American  would  give  to  Yekt  on  account  of  its 
subject.  Strong  compensating  qualities  are  nec- 
essary to  induce  a  publisher  or  editor  to  print 
anything  which  they  think  is  in  subject  disagree- 
able to  the  big  body  of  American  readers,  most 
of  whom  are  women.  Without  attempting  to 
criticise  the  ''voice  of  the  people,"  it  may  be 
pointed  out  that  there  are  at  least  two  ways  in 
which  a  book  maybe  ''unpleasant."  It  may  be 
so  in  the  formal  theme,  the  characters,  the  re- 
sult— things  may  come  out  unhappily,  vice  tri- 
umphant, and  the  section  of  life  portrayed  may 
be  a  sordid  one.  This  is  the  kind  of  unpleasant- 
ness which  publishers  particularly  object  to  ;  and 
in  this  sense  Fe^/may  fairly  be  called  "unpleas- 
ant." Turgenieff's  Torrents  of  Spring  is  also  in 
this  sense  "unpleasant,"  for  it  tells  how  a  young 
man's  sincere  and  poetic  first  love  is  turned  to 
failure  and  misery  by  the  illegitimate  temporary 
attraction  of  a  fascinating  woman  of  the  world. 
But  Turgenieffs  novel  is  nevertheless  full  of 
buoyant  vitality,  full  of  freshness  and  charm,  of 

248 


youth  and  grace,  full  of  life-giving  qualities ;  be- 
cause of  it  we  all  may  live  more  abundantly. 
The  same  may  be  said  of  many  another  book. 
When  there  is  sweetness,  strength  and  early 
vigor  in  a  book  the  reader  is  refreshed  notwith- 
standing the  theme.  And  it  is  noticeable  that 
youth  is  not  afraid  of  subjects." 

Another  way  in  which  a  book  may  be  "un- 
pleasant" is  in  the  quality  of  deadness.  Many 
books  with  pleasant  and  moral  themes  and 
endings  are  unpoetic  and  unpleasantly  mature. 
Even  a  book  great  in  subject,  with  much  philos- 
ophy in  it,  may  show  a  lack  of  sensitiveness  to 
the  vital  qualities,  to  the  effects  of  spring,  to 
the  joy  in  mere  physical  life,  which  are  so 
marked  and  so  genuinely  invigorating  in  the 
best  Russian  fiction.  The  extreme  of  this  kind 
of  unpleasantness  is  shown  in  the  case  of  some 
modern  Frenchmen  and  Italians ;  not  primarily 
in  the  theme,  but  in  the  lack  of  poetry  and  vigor, 
of  hope ;  in  a  sodden  maturity,  often  indeed 
combined  with  great  qualities  of  intellect  and 
workmanship,  but  dead  to  the  little  things  of 
life,  dead  to  the  feeling  of  spring  in  the  blood,  to 
naive  readiness  for  experience.  An  American 
who  is  the  antithesis  of  this  kind  of  thing  is 
Walt  Whitman.  His  quality  put  into  prose  is 
what  we  have  in  the  best  Russian  novels.  In 

249 


GITL 


the  latter  acceptation  of  the  word  unpleasant, 
too,  it  cannot  be  applied  to  Yekl;  for  Yekl  is 
youthful  and  vital.  There  is  buoyant  spring  in 
the  lines  and  robust  joy  in  truth  whatever  it 
may  be. 

Apropos  of  Cahan's  love  of  truth,  and  that  word 
"unpleasant,"  a  discussion  which  took  place  a 
few  years  ago  on  the  appearance  of  Zangwill's 
play.  The  Children  of  the  Ghetto^  is  illuminative. 
That  poetic  drama  represented  the  life  of  the 
poor  Ghetto  Jew  with  sympathy  and  truth ;  but 
for  that  very  reason  it  was  severely  criticised  by 
some  uptown  Israelites.  Many  of  these,  no 
doubt,  had  religious  objections  to  a  display  on 
the  stage  of  those  customs  and  observances  of 
their  race  which  touched  upon  the  "holy  law." 
But  some  of  the  rich  German  Jews,  practically 
identified  with  American  life,  and  desiring  for 
practical  and  social  purposes  to  make  little  of 
their  racial  distinction,  deprecated  literature 
which  portrayed  the  life  of  those  Jews  who  still 
have  distinctively  national  traits  and  customs. 
Then,  too,  there  is  a  tendency  among  the  well- 
to-do  American  Jews  to  look  down  upon  their 
Ghetto  brethen,  to  regard  the  old  customs  as 
benighted  and  to  treat  them  with  a  certain  con- 
tempt ;  altho  they  spend  a  great  deal  of  chari- 
table money  in  the  quarter.    Feeling  a  little 

251 


ashamed  of  the  poor  Russian  east  side  Jew,  they 
object  to  a  serious  literary  portrayal  of  him. 
They  want  no  attention  called  to  what  they 
deem  the  less  attractive  aspects  of  their  race. 
An  uptown  Jewish  lady,  on  the  appearance  in  a 
newspaper  of  a  story  about  east  side  Jewish 
life,  wrote  a  protesting  letter  to  the  editor.  She 
told  the  writer  of  the  sketch,  when  he  was  sent 
to  see  her,  that  she  could  not  see  why  he  didn't 
write  about  uptown  Jews  instead  of  sordid  east 
side  Jews.  The  scribe  replied  that  he  wrote  of 
the  Ghetto  Jew  because  he  found  him  interest- 
ing, while  he  couldn't  see  anything  attractive  or 
picturesque  about  the  comfortable  Israelite  up- 
town. 

Abraham  Cahan's  stories  have  been  subjected 
to  criticism  inspired  by  the  same  spirit.  Feeling 
the  charm  of  his  people  he  has  attempted  to 
picture  them  as  they  are,  in  shadow  and  light ; 
and  has  consequently  been  accused  of  betraying 
his  race  to  the  Gentiles. 

The  attitude  of  the  east  side  Jews  towards 
writers  like  Zangwill  and  Cahan  is  in  refreshing 
contrast.  The  Yiddish  newspapers  were  enthu- 
siastic about  Children  of  the  Ghetto,  in  which  they 
felt  the  Jews  were  truthfully  and  therefore  sym- 
pathetically portrayed.  In  the  literary  sketches 
and  plays  now  produced  in  considerable  numbers 

252 


in  the  "jargon,"  a  great  pride  of  race  is  mani- 
fest. The  writers  have  not  lost  their  self-re- 
spect, still  abound  in  their  own  sense  and  are 
consequently  vitally  interesting.  They  are  full 
of  ideals  and  enthusiasm  and  do  not  object  to 
what  is  "unpleasant"  so  strenuously  as  do  their 
uptown  brethren. 


253 


CKoLpter  Nine 


%fjt  louns  Srt  anti  its 

On  Hester  Street,  east  of  the  Bowery,  the  poor 
Jew  is  revealed  in  many  a  characteristic  way.  It 
is  the  home  of  the  sweat-shop,  of  the  crowded 
tenement-house.  Old  pedlers,  as  ragged  as  the 
poorest  beggars,  stand  on  street  corners.  In 
long  uninterrupted  lines  are  the  carts — contain- 
ing fruit,  cake,  dry  goods,  fish,  everything  that 
the  proletarian  Jew  requires.  Behind  these 
tower  the  crowded  tenement-liouses,  with  fire- 
escapes  for  balconies.  Through  the  middle  of 
the  street  constantly  moves  a  mass  of  people. 
No  vehicle  can  go  rapidly  there,  for  the  thor- 
oughfare is  literally  alive.  In  the  least  crowded 
part  of  the  day,  however,  tattered  little  girls 
may  sometimes  be  seen  dancing  with  natural 
grace  to  the  music  of  a  hand-organ,  the  Italian 
owner  of  which  for  some  strange  reason  has 
embedded  himself  in  the  very  heart  of  poverty. 
Between  the  lumbering  wagons  which  infest  the 
street  at  the  less  busy  part  of  the  day  these  little 

254 


children  wonderfully  sway  and  glide  and  consti- 
tute the  only  gladsome  feature  of  the  scene. 
Just  as  Canal  Street,  with  its  cafes  where  the 
poets,  Socialists,  scholars  and  journalists  meet, 
is  the  mind  of  the  Ghetto,  so  Hester  Street 
represents  its  heart.  This  picturesque  street 
has  recently  become  the  study  of  several  young 
Jewish  artists. 

The  last  few  years  have  brought  the  earliest 
indications  of  what  may  develop  into  a  charac- 
teristic Ghetto  art.  In  the  course  of  their  long 
civilization  the  Jews  have  never  developed  a 
national  plastic  art.  Devoted  to  the  things  of 
the  spirit,  in  an  important  period  of  their  history 
in  conflict  with  the  sensuous  art  of  the  Greeks, 
they  have  never  put  into  external  forms  the 
heart  of  their  life.  There  have  been  occasional 
painters  and  sculptors  among  them,  but  these 
have  worked  in  line  with  the  Gentiles,  and  have 
in  no  way  contributed  to  a  typical  or  national 
art.  With  the  slackening  of  the  Hebraic  reli- 
gion, however,  which  prohibits  images  in  the 
temple  —  that  fertile  source  of  inspiration  in 
Christian  art — the  conditions  have  been  more 
favorable,  and  the  beginning  of  a  distinctive 
Ghetto  art  has  already  made  its  appearance  in 
New  York. 

On  the  corner  of  Hester  and  Forsyth  streets 

255 


is  a  tumble-down  rickety  building.  The  stairs 
that  ascend  to  the  garret  are  pestiferous  and 
dingy.  In  what  is  more  like  a  shed  than  a 
room,  with  the  wooden  ribs  of  the  slanting  roof 
curtailing  the  space,  is  the  studio  of  an  east  side 
artist.  A  miserable  iron  bedstead  occupies  the 
narrow  strip  of  floor  beneath  the  descending 
ceiling.  There  is  one  window,  which  commands 
a  good  view  of  the  pushcart  market  in  Hester 
Street.  Near  the  window  is  a  diminutive  oil- 
stove,  on  which  the  artist  prepares  his  tea  and 
eggs.  On  a  peg  on  the  door  hang  an  old  mack- 
intosh and  an  extra  coat — his  only  additional 
wardrobe.  About  the  narrow  walls  on  the  three 
available  sides  are  easels,  and  sketches  and 
paintings  of  Ghetto  types. 

Jacob  Epstein,  the  name  of  the  artist,  has  a 
melancholy  wistful  face.  He  was  born  in  the 
Ghetto  twenty  years  ago,  of  poor  Jews,  who 
were  at  first  tailors  and  afterwards  small  trades- 
people, and  who  had  emigrated  from  Poland. 
He  went  to  the  public  schools  until  he  was 
thirteen  years  old.  Since  then  he  has  worked 
at  various  jobs.  Until  recently  he  was  an  in- 
structor in  the  boys'  out-door  gymnasium  near 
the  corner  of  Hester  and  Essex  streets.  For 
one  summer,  in  order  to  get  a  vacation,  he 
became  a  farm  laborer.    His  art  education  as 

256 


well  as  his  education  in  general  is  slight,  consist- 
ing of  two  terms  at  the  Art  Students'  League. 
But  for  so  young  a  man  his  intellectual,  as  well 
as  his  artistic  activity  has  been  considerable. 
He  belongs  to  a  number  of  debating  societies, 
and  is  now  hesitating  in  his  mind  whether  to 
become  a  Socialist  or  an  Anarchist,  altho  he  is 
tending  towards  a  humane  socialism. 

Two  things,  however,  he  seems  definitely  to 
have  settled— that  he  will  devote  himself  to  his 
art,  and  that  that  art  shall  be  the  plastic  pictur- 
ing of  the  life  of  his  people  in  the  Ghetto.  He 
seems  to  rejoice  at  having  lost  his  various  pot- 
boiling  positions. 

I  was  not  a  gymnast,"  he  said  cheerfully, 
explaining  why  he  left  the  last  one,  **and  now 
they  have  a  gymnast." 

Now  he  lives  alone  on  his  beloved  Hester 
Street  and  the  studio,  where  he  sleeps  and  eats. 
For  that  modest  room  he  pays  $4  a  month,  and 
as  he  cooks  his  own  meals,  $12  a  month  is  quite 
sufficient  to  satisfy  all  his  needs.  This  amount 
he  can  usually  manage  to  make  through  the 
sale  of  his  sketches ;  but  when  he  does  not  he 
''goes  to  bed,"  as  he  puts  it,  and  lies  low  until 
one  of  his  various  little  art  enterprises  brings 
him  in  a  small  check.  Withal,  he  is  very  happy, 
altho  serious,  like  his  race  in  general ;  and  full  of 

257 


idealism  and  ambition.  On  one  occasion  the 
idea  occured  to  him  and  to  his  friend,  Bernard 
Gussow,  that  men  ought  to  live  closer  to  nature 
than  they  can  in  the  Ghetto.  It  was  in  the 
winter  time  that  they  were  filled  with  this  con- 
viction, but  they  nevertheless  packed  off  and 
hired  a  farmhouse  at  Greenwood  Lake,  and 
stayed  there  the  whole  winter.  When  their 
money  gave  out  they  cut  ice  in  the  river  to  pay 
the  rent. 

"We  enjoyed  it  very  much,"  said  Epstein, 
"but  there  were  no  artistic  results.  The  coun- 
try, much  as  I  love  it,  is  not  stimulating.  Clouds 
and  trees  are  not  satisfying.  It  is  only  in  the 
Ghetto,  where  there  is  human  nature,  that  I 
have  ideas  for  sketches." 

With  a  kind  of  regret  the  artist  spoke  of  the 
beauty  of  Winslow  Homer's  landscape.  He 
called  it  "epic,"  and  was  filled  with  sorrow  that 
such  an  art  could  not  be  in  the  Ghetto. 

"There  is  no  nature  in  the  sweat-shop,"  he 
said,  "and  yet  it  is  there  and  in  the  crowded 
street  that  my  love  and  my  imagination  call  me. 
It  is  only  the  minds  and  souls  of  my  people  that 
fill  me  with  a  desire  to  work." 

It  is  this  ambition  which  makes  Jacob  Epstein 
and  the  other  young  artists  to  be  mentioned  of 
uncommon  representative  interest.    Epstein  is 

258 


filled  with  a  melancholy  love  of  his  race,  and  his 
constant  desire  is  to  paint  his  people  just  as 
they  are :  to  show  them  in  their  suffering  pic- 
turesqueness.  So  he  goes  into  the  sweat-shop 
and  sketches,  induces  the  old  pedlers  of  Hester 
Street  to  pose  in  his  studio,  and  draws  from  his 
window  the  push-carts  and  the  old  women  in 
the  street.  It  is  thus  a  characteristic  Ghetto 
art,  an  art  dealing  v/ith  the  peculiar  types  of 
that  Jewish  community,  that  Epstein's  interest 
leads  to ;  a  national  plastic  art,  as  it  were,  on  a 
small  scale. 

In  the  studio  and  at  an  exhibition  at  the  He- 
brew Institute  Epstein  had  two  years  ago  a 
number  of  sketches  and  a  few  paintings — the 
latter  very  crude  as  far  as  the  technique  of  color 
is  concerned,  and  the  sketches  in  charcoal  rough 
and  showing  comparatively  slight  mastery  of 
the  craft.  But,  particularly  in  the  sketches, 
there  is  character  in  every  one,  and  at  once  a 
sympathetic  and  a  realistic  imagination.  He 
tells  the  truth  about  the  Ghetto  as  he  sees  it, 
but  into  the  dark  reality  of  the  external  life  he 
puts  frequently  a  melancholy  beauty  of  spirit. 
Portraits  of  old  pedlers,  roughly  successful  as 
Ghetto  types,  in  order  to  retain  whom  as  models 
the  artist  was  frequently  forced  to  sing  a  song, 
for  the  pedlers  have  a  Jewish  horror  of  the 

259 


A  LITTLE  GIRL  OF 
HESTER  STREET 


image,  and  it  is  difficult  to  get  them  to 
pose ;  one  of  them  with  an  irregular, 
blunted  nose  and  eyes  sad  and  plaintive, 
but  very  gentle  ;  an  old  Jew  in  the  syna- 
gogue, praying  ^'Holy,"  Holy";  many 
sweat-shop  scenes,  gaunt  figures  half- 
dressed,  with  enormously  long  arms  and 
bony  figures ;  mothers  working  in  the 
shops  with  babies  in  their  arms ;  one 
woman,  tired,  watching  for  a  moment  her 
lean  husband  working  the  machine — that 
machine  of  which  Morris  Rosenfeld  sings 
so  powerfully  in  The  Sweat-Shop  "  ;  a 
woman  with  her  head  leaning  heavily  on 
her  hands  ;  Hester  Street  market  scenes, 
with  dreary  tenement-houses — a  kind  of 
prison  wall — as  background ;  one  pedler  with  a 
sensitive  face — a  man  the  artist  had  to  catch  at 
odd  times,  surreptitiously,  for,  religious  to  an  ex- 
treme, the  old  fellow  would  hastily  trundle  off 
whenever  he  saw  Epstein. 

A  characteristic  of  this  young  artist's  work  is 
the  seriousness  with  which  he  tries  to  get  the 
type  as  it  is ;  the  manifest  love  involved  in  the 
way  it  takes  his  imagination.  With  his  whole 
soul  he  hates  caricature  of  his  race.  Most  of 
the  magazine  illustrations  of  Ghetto  characters 
he  finds  distorted  and  untrue,  many  of  them, 

260 


however,  done  with  a  finish  of  technique  that  he 
envies.  A  big  and  ugly  nose  is  not  the  enthusi- 
astic artist's  idea  of  what  constitutes  a  down- 
town Jew.  The  Jew,  to  him,  is  recognized 
rather  by  the  peculiar  melancholy  of  the  eyes. 
In  the  nose  he  sees  nothing  particularly  typical 
of  the  race.  It  is  a  forcible  illustration  of  how, 
while  really  remaining  faithful  to  the  external 
type,  his  love  for  the  race  leads  him  to  emphasize 
the  spiritual  and  humane  expressiveness  of  the 
faces  about  him ;  and  so  paves  the  way  to  an  art 
imaginative  as  well  as  typical,  not  lacking  even 
in  a  certain  ideal  beauty. 

Bernard  Gussow,  Epstein's  friend  and  fellow- 
worker  in  the  attempt  to  found  a  distinctive 
Ghetto  art,  is  in  a  still  earlier  stage  of  develop- 
ment. His  essays  in  the  plastic  reproduction  of 
Hester  Street  types  are  not  yet  as  humanly 
interesting  as  those  of  the  younger  man,  who, 
however,  has  been  working  longer  and  more 
assiduously.  It  is  only  for  the  past  year  or  two 
that  Gussow  has  definitely  espoused  this  cause. 

Unlike  Epstein  he  was  not  born  in  New  York. 
The  town  of  Slutzk,  in  the  government  of 
Ulinsk,  Russia,  is  his  birthplace,  where  he 
stayed  until  he  was  eleven  years  old.  His  father 
is  a  teacher  of  Hebrew,  and  young  Gussow  con- 
sequently received  a  much  better  education  than 

261 


Epstein ;  and  also  became  much  more  familiar 
with  the  religious  life  of  the  Orthodox  Jews. 
For  that  reason  Epstein  urges  his  friend  to  take 
the  New  York  Orthodox  synagogue  and  the 
domestic  life  of  the  religious  Jew  as  his  dis- 
tinctive field  in  the  great  work  in  hand.  For 
this,  too,  Gussow  hopes,  but  in  the  present  con- 
dition of  his  technique  he  limits  himself  to  Hes- 
ter Street  scenes. 

In  New  York  Gussow  continued  to  build  up  an 
education  uncommonly  good  in  the  Ghetto.  He 
went  through  the  High  School,  entered  the  City 
College,  which  he  left  for  the  Art  School,  and 
spent  one  season  at  the  League  and  two  at  the 
Academy  of  Design.  He  has  for  many  years 
given  lessons  in  English  ;  to  which  occupation 
he,  unlike  his  more  emotional  friend,  prudently 
holds  on.  But  Gussow,  also,  is  deeply  if  not 
emotionally  interested  in  the  life  of  the  Ghetto, 
and  in  a  broader  if  less  intense  form  than  is 
Epstein.  With  the  contemporary  Yiddish  liter- 
ature and  journalism  of  New  York  he  is  well 
acquainted.  His  mind  is  more  conservative  and 
judicial  than  that  of  Epstein  ;  but  his  sketches 
lack,  at  present  at  least,  the  touch  of  strong 
sympathy  and  imagination  which  is  marked  in 
the  art  of  the  younger  man. 

Gussow  lives  with  his  father's  family,  where 

262 


he  keeps  his  sketches — but  to  work,  he  goes  to 
a  room  on  the  corner  of  Hester  and  Essex 
streets  occupied  by  a  poor  Jewish  family.  Here 
the  artist  sits  by  the  window  and  watches  the 
poor  and  picturesque  scenes  in  the  big  push-cart 
market  directly  beneath  him.  The  subjects  of 
his  sketches  are  roughly  the  same  as  those  of 
Epstein,  altho  he  draws  rather  more  from  the 
street  and  Epstein  from  the  sweat-shop.  Groups 
standing  about  the  push-carts,  examining  goods 
and  bargaining ;  an  old  woman  with  a  cheese  in 
her  hand,  and  an  enormous  nose  (which  Epstein 
reproachfully  calls  a  caricature);  several  sketches 
representing  men  or  women  holding  eggs  to  the 
sun,  as  a  test  preliminary  to  buying ;  carpenters 
waiting  on  the  corner  near  the  market  for  a  job  ; 
an  old  Jew  critically  examining  apples  ;  a  roughly 
indicated,  rather  attractive  Jewish  girl ;  a  woman 
standing  by  a  push-cart  counting  her  money ;  a 
confused  Hester  Street  crowd,  walled  in  by  the 
lofty  tenement-houses ;  a  wall-painter  with  an 
interesting  face,  who  peddles  horse-radish  when 
not  occupied  with  painting;  a  pedler  out  of  work, 
just  from  the  hospital,  his  beard  straggling  in 
again,  with  the  characteristic  sad  eyes  of  his 
race  ;  this  rather  small  list  comprises  the  greater 
part  of  Gussow's  work,  and  most  of  it  is  of  a 
distinctly  sketchy  nature. 

264 


"You  see,"  said  Epstein  sympathetically, 
"  Bernard  has  until  recently  been  working  for 
the  tenement-house  committee,  and  has  only 
just  got  away  from  his  job."  Both  of  these 
young  men  seem  to  think  it  a  piece  of  good  luck 
when  they  are  discharged  by  their  employers. 

These  artists  both  recognize  that  the  distinct- 
ive Ghetto  art  is  in  its  earliest  stage ;  and  that 
whatever  has  yet  been  done  in  that  direction  is 
technically  very  imperfect.  But  they  call  atten- 
tion even  to  the  crayon  art  stores  of  the  Ghetto  as 
crudely  pointing  in  the  right  direction.  In  those 
chromos,  which  contain  absolutely  no  artistic 
quality,  is  represented,  nevertheless,  the  religious 
and  domestic  life  of  the  Jews  and  their  physical 
types.  And  whatever  art  there  is  at  present  is 
supported  by  the  popularity  with  the  people  of 
this  crayon  work.  On  the  basis  of  that  the 
artist  proper  may  work  out  the  type  into  more 
truly  interpretative  forms. 

For  this  young  art,  the  object  of  which  is  to 
give  a  realistic  picture  of  the  life  of  the  Ghetto,  it 
is  easy  to  conceive  an  unduly  sentimental  inter- 
est. It  is  not  unnatural  in  this  time  of  great 
attention  to  east  side  charitable  work  to  give 
greater  value  than  it  deserves  to  an  art  which 
represents  the  sordidness  and  the  pathos  of  that 
part  of  the  city.    Against  this  attitude,  which 

265 


they  also  call  sentimental,  Epstein  and  Gussow 
earnestly  protest,  and  maintain  that  unless  the 
Ghetto  art  becomes  some  day  technically  excel- 
lent it  will  have  no  legitimate  value.  They  want 
it  judged  on  the  same  basis  that  any  other  art  is 
judged ;  and  they  are  filled  with  the  faith,  or  at 
least  the  enthusiastic  Epstein  is,  that  the  time 
will  come  when  the  artists  of  the  Ghetto  will  paint 
typical  Jewish  life,  and  paint  it  technically  well. 

It  is  true,  of  course,  that  the  ultimate  value  of 
this  little  art  movement  in  the  Ghetto  will  de- 
pend upon  how  well  the  attempt  to  paint  the 
life  is  eventually  carried  out.  But,  nevertheless, 
even  if  nothing  comes  of  it,  it  is  important  as 
suggesting  an  interesting  departure  from  what 
is  the  prevailing  limitation  of  American  art.  In 
Epstein's  work  something  of  the  typical  life  of  a 
community  is  expressed ;  of  what  American 
painter  from  among  the  Gentiles  can  this  be 
said  ?  Where  is  the  typical,  the  nationally 
characteristic,  in  our  art  ?  Our  best  painters 
experiment  with  all  kinds  of  subjects ;  they  put 
talent,  sometimes  genius,  into  their  work,  but  at 
the  basis  of  it  there  is  no  simple  presentation  of 
well-recognized  and  deeply  felt  national  or  even 
sectional  life;  merely  essays  in  art,  of  more  or 
less  skill,  showing  no  warm  interest  in  any  one 
kind  of  life. 

266 


There  are  many  other  artists,  besides  these 
two,  in  the  Ghetto,  some  of  whom  also  occasion- 
ally paint  a  distinctive  Ghetto  type.  But  for  the 
most  part,  trained  as  they  have  been  in  the  up- 
town art  schools,  they  experiment  with  all  sorts 
of  subjects  in  the  approved  American  style. 
They  paint  girls  in  white  and  girls  in  blue,  etc., 
as  Epstein  expressed  it  scornfully  ;  and  put  no 
general  Ghetto  quality  into  their  work.  They 
do  not  seem  deeply  interested  in  anything  except 
painting.  Many  of  them  are  technically  better 
educated  than  Epstein  and  Gussow ;  tho  it  is 
probably  safe  to  say  that  no  one  of  them  has  the 
sympathetic  imagination  of  Epstein.  It  is  to 
this  eclectic,  experimental  tendency  of  the  ar- 
tists in  the  Ghetto  in  general  that  Epstein  and 
Gussow  present  a  contrast — in  their  love  of  their 
people  and  their  desire  to  paint  them  as  they  are. 

A  typical  representative  of  this  less  centred 
art  is  Samuel  Kalisch,  twenty-six  years  old,  who 
came  to  this  country  from  Austria  twelve  years 
ago.  Older  than  the  two  young  enthusiasts, 
Kalisch  has  had  more  experience  and  has  devel- 
oped a  more  efficient  technique.  He  works  in 
oils  to  a  greater  extent  than  the  others  and  has 
a  number  of  comparatively  finished  pictures  ;  but 
his  studio  resembles  that  of  any  rather  undis- 
tinguished uptown  artist  in  point  of  diversity 

267 


of  subject  and  artistic  impulse.  There  is  an 
Oriental  scene  of  conventional  character  ;  a  por- 
trait of  himself  taken  from  the  mirror ;  a  num- 
ber of  examples  of  still-life,  apples,  flowers,  a 
"cute"  scene  of  children  playing  on  the  beach; 
a  landscape,  etc.  Of  distinctive  Ghetto  things 
there  are  two  old  men,  one  just  from  the  syna- 
gogue, with  pensive  eyes,  a  long  beard  and  a 
Derby  hat ;  the  other,  ninety-four  years  old,  who 
sits  in  the  synagogue,  with  a  long  white  beard,  a 
black  cap  on  his  head,  a  cane  in  one  hand  and 
the  Talmud  in  the  other.  These  two  portraits 
show  considerable  technical  skill,  but  are  faithful 
rather  than  interpretative,  and  indicate  that  the 
artist's  sympathy  is  not  absorbed  in  the  life  of 
the  Ghetto.  They  are  merely  subjects,  like  any 
other,  which  might  come  to  his  hand. 

Now  in  full  sympathy  with  what  may  be  called 
the  "movement"  is  Nathaniel  Loewenberg,  a 
little,  black-haired,  sad-eyed,  sensitive  and  ap- 
pealing Russian  Jew  of  twenty-one  years  of  age. 
It  is  only  recently,  however,  that  he  has  turned 
from  landscape  to  city  types,  of  which  he  has  a 
few  sketches,  very  incomplete  with  one  excep- 
tion, that  also  unfinished  but  unusually  promis- 
ing ;  it  is  in  oil  and  represents  a  Jew  fish  pedler 
of  attractive  countenance  and  shabby  clothes 
trying  to  sell  a  fine  fish  to  three  Ghetto  women ; 

268 


these  latter  cleverly  distinguished,  one  who  will 
probably  buy,  another  who  apparently  would 
like  to  if  she  could  reduce  the  price,  and  the 
third  indifferent. 

Loewenberg  was  born  in  Moscow,  of  parents 
who  were  then  and  are  now  in  business.  He  is 
enthusiastic  at  present  over  two  things:  Russian 
literature  and  the  life  of  the  Jews.  On  his  table 
are  two  books — one  a  history  of  the  Hebrews, 
the  other  Tolstoi's  "Awakening,"  in  Russian. 
His  newest  interest  is  the  Ghetto;  "for,"  he 
said,  "  the  Ghetto  is  full  of  character.  There 
the  people's  life  is  more  exposed  than  anywhere 
else,  and  the  artist  can  easily  penetrate  into  it." 

The  type  Loewenberg  hopes  to  delineate  is  of 
different  character  from  that  of  Hester  Street, 
where  Gussow  and  Epstein  work.  His  field  is 
mainly  at  the  corner  of  Rivington  and  Attorney 
streets,  where  the  Jews  are  Hungarians  and 
Poles  and  have  a  distinctive  type.  That  is  the 
location  of  another  push-cart  market,  and  altho 
the  human  types  are  different  from  those  of 
Hester  Street,  the  peddling  occupations  are 
identical.  Loewenberg's  fancy  runs  largely  to 
the  young  Jewish  girl  of  this  quarter,  and  she  is 
represented  in  several  half  done  sketches. 

The  New  York  Ghetto  is  constantly  changing. 
It  shifts  from  one  part  of  town  to  another,  and 

269 


the  time  is  not  so  very  far  distant  when  it  will 
cease  to  exist  altogether.  The  sweat-shop  will 
happily  disappear  with  advancing  civilization  in 
New  York.  The  tenement-houses  will  change 
in  character,  the  children  will  learn  English  and 
partly  forget  their  Yiddish  language  and  peculiar 
customs.  In  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  Jews  have 
been  at  all  times  and  in  all  countries  tenacious 
of  their  domestic  peculiarities  and  their  religion, 
the  special  character  of  the  Ghetto  will  pass 
away  in  favorably  conditioned  America.  The 
picturesqueness  it  now  possesses  will  disappear. 
Perhaps,  however,  by  that  time  an  art  will  have 
been  developed  which  will  preserve  for  future 
generations  the  character  of  the  present  life ; 
which  may  thus  have  historical  value,  and  ar- 
tistic beauty  in  addition.  Epstein  and  Gussow, 
devoted  to  this  result  as  they  are,  are  yet  quite 
eager  to  see  present  conditions  pass  away.  To 
them  the  art  they  have  selected  seems  of  trifling 
importance  in  comparison  with  a  general  im- 
provement of  the  people  they  seem  genuinely  to 
love.  They  would  be  glad  to  have  the  present 
picturesqueness  of  the  Ghetto  give  place  to  con- 
ditions more  analogous  to  those  of  happier 
sections  of  New  York. 

But  in  the  meantime  these  few  young  artists, 
two  or  three  particularly  interested  in  Ghetto 

270 


types,  five  or  six  others,  perhaps  more,  who 
occasionally  contribute  a  sketch  of  the  Ghetto, 
are  in  a  fair  way  to  get  together  a  considerable 
body  of  pictures  which  shall  have  the  distinction 
of  portraying  the  Jewish  community  of  the  east 
side  with  fair  adequacy.  Certainly  the  interest 
of  that  Hester  Street  life,  and  of  the  tenement- 
houses  that  line  it,  is  deep  enough  to  inspire 
some  serious  man  of  plastic  genius.  And  then 
it  is  not  improbable  that  some  great  sombre 
pictures  will  be  painted.  The  conditions  for 
such  a  significant  art  are  ripe,  and  it  may  find  its 
master  in  one  or  another  of  the  young  men  who 
are  passionately    doing"  Hester  Street. 


271 


Chapter  Ten 


0Vt}  C|)aracter2i 

No  matter  how  "queer"  are  the  numerous 
persons  whom  one  can  meet  in  the  cafes  of  the 
quarter  they  are  mainly  redeemed  by  a  genuinely 
intellectual  vein.  It  is  reserved  for  this  final 
chapter  to  tell  of  some  men  who  do  not  well  fit 
into  the  preceding  categories,  but  whose  lives  or 
works  are,  in  one  way  or  another,  quite  worthy 
of  record. 

AN  OUT-OF-DATE  STORY-WRITER 

Shaikevitch  is  the  author  of  interminable,  un- 
signed novels,  which  are  published  in  daily 
installments  in  the  east  side  newspapers.  He  is 
so  prolific  that  he  makes  a  good  living.  There 
was  a  time,  however,  when  he  gladly  signed  his 
name  to  what  he  wrote.  That  time  is  over,  and 
the  reason  for  it  is  best  brought  out  by  a  sketch 
of  his  history. 

He  was  born  in  Minsk,  Russia,  of  orthodox 
Jewish  parents.  He  began  to  write  when  he 
was  twenty  years  old,  at  first  in  pure  Hebrew, 
scientific  and  historical  articles.    He  also  wrote 

272 


a  Hebrew  novel,  called  the  Victim  of  the  Inquisition, 
to  which  the  Russian  censor  objected  on  the 
ground  that  it  dealt  with  religious  subjects. 

Compelled  to  make  his  own  living,  young 
Shaikevitch,  whose  nom  de  plume  has  always 
been  Schomer,"  began  to  write  popular  novels 
in  the  common  jargon,  in  Yiddish.  At  that  time 
the  Jews  in  Russia  were,  even  more  than  now, 
shut  up  in  their  own  communities,  knew  nothing 
of  European  culture,  had  an  education,  if  any, 
exclusively  Hebraic  and  mediaeval  and  were 
outlandish  to  an  extreme.  The  educated  read 
only  Hebrew,  and  the  uneducated  did  not  read 
at  all.  Up  to  that  time,  or  until  shortly  before 
it,  the  Jew  thought  that  nothing  but  holy  teach- 
ing could  be  printed  in  Hebrew  type.  A  man 
named  Dick,  however,  a  kind  of  forerunner  of 
Shaikevitch,  had  begun  to  write  secular  stories 
in  Yiddish.  They  were  popular  in  form,  intended 
for  the  ignorant  populace  who  never  read  at  all.  * 
Shaikevitch  followed  in  Dick's  lines,  and  made  a 
great  success. 

He  has  written  over  i6o  stories,  and  for  many 
years  he  was  the  great  popular  Yiddish  writer 
in  Russia.  The  people  would  read  nothing  but 
**Schomer's"  works.  The  ignorant  masses 
eagerly  devoured  the  latest  novel  ofSchomer's. 
It  goes  without  saying  that,  under  the  circum- 

273 


stances,  these  books  could  be  of  very  slight 
literary  value.  They  were  long,  sentimental 
effusions,  tales  of  bad  Christians  and  good  Jews, 
with  a  monotonous  repetition  of  stock  characters 
and  situations ;  and  with  a  melodramatic  and 
sensational  element.  They  probably  corre- 
sponded pretty  closely  to  our  nickel"  novels, 
published  in  some  of  our  cheapest  periodicals, 
and  intended  for  the  most  ignorant  element  of 
our  population.  Some  of  their  titles  are  A 
Shameful  Error,  An  Unexpected  Happiness,  The  Prin- 
cess in  the  Wood,  Con'bicted,  Rebecca* 

^'Schomer"  was  so  successful  that  he  had 
many  imitators,  who  never,  however,  succeeded 
so  well.  The  publishers  sometimes  tried  to 
deceive  the  ignorant  people  into  thinking  that  a 
new  novel  of  Schomer's  had  appeared.  On  the 
cover  of  the  book  they  put  the  title  and  the  new 
author's  name  in  very  small  letters,  and  then  in 
very  large  letters :  In  the  style  of  Schomer." 
But  it  did  not  work.  The  people  remained 
faithful  to  the  books  of  the  man  whom  they  had 
first  read. 

When  Shaikevitch,  or  ''Schomer"  himself, 
describes  the  purpose  and  characters  of  his 
work  he  talks  as  follows  : 

My  works  are  partly  pictures  of  the  life  of 
the  Jews  in  the  Russian  villages  of  fifty  years 

274 


ago,  and  partly  novels  about  the  old  history  of 
the  Jews.  Fifty  years  ago  the  Jews  were  more 
fanatical  than  they  are  now.  They  did  nothing 
but  study  the  Talmud,  pray  and  fast,  wear  long 
beards  and  wigs  and  look  like  monkeys.  I 
satirized  all  this  in  my  novels.  I  tried  to  teach 
the  ignorant  Jews  that  they  were  ridiculous,  that 
they  ought  to  take  hold  of  modern,  practical  life 
and  give  up  all  that  was  merely  formal  and 
absurd  in  the  old  customs.  I  taught  them  that 
a  pious  man  might  be  a  hypocrite,  and  that  it  is 
better  to  do  good  than  to  pray.  My  works  had 
a  great  effect  in  modernizing  and  educating  the 
ignorant  Jews.  In  my  stories  I  pictured  how 
the  Jewish  boy  might  go  out  from  his  little 
village  into  the  wide,  Gentile  world,  and  make 
something  of  himself.  In  the  last  twenty-five 
years,  the  Jews,  owing  to  my  books,  have  lost  a 
great  deal  of  their  fanaticism.  At  that  time 
they  had  nothing  but  my  books  to  read,  and  so 
my  satire  had  a  great  effect." 

Shaikevitch  is  not  entirely  alone  in  this  good 
opinion  of  his  work.  Dr.  Blaustein,  superin- 
tendent of  the  Educational  Alliance,  said  that 
he  owed  his  position  as  an  educated  and  modern 
man  to  reading  novels  when  he  was  a  boy.  Dr. 
Blaustein  lived  in  a  small  Russian  village,  and 
one  day  he  read  a  story  of  **Schomer's"  which 

275 


represented  a  Jewish  boy  going  out  into  the 
world  and  criticizing  his  Hebraic  surroundings. 
That  was  the  beginning  of  Dr.  Blaustein's 
"awakening."  Other  intelligent  Russian  Jews 
probably  had  this  same  experience,  altho  now 
as  mature  men  they  would  all,  no  doubt,  grant 
only  a  very  small,  if  any,  artistic  quality  to  the 
famous  Yiddish  writer. 

A  few  years  after  Shaikevitch's  great  popular- 
ity two  men  began  to  write  in  Yiddish  stories 
which  really  had  value  for  the  intelligent  and 
educated — Abramovitch  and,  particularly,  his 
pupil  Rabinovitch.  It  was  this  work  which,  in 
some  sort  of  form,  did  intelligently  for  the  more 
educated  Jews  what  Shaikevitch  had  done  for 
the  lowest  stratum.  Rabinovitch  published  a 
book  in  which  he  brought  Shaikevitch  to  trial. 
He  literally  "tore  him  up  the  back"  as  far  as 
literature  is  concerned — poinced  out  the  taste- 
less, cheap,  sensational  character  of  his  work, 
and  held  him  up  generally  to  ridicule. 

As  the  Jews  became  better  educated  this 
critical  feeling  about  Shaikevitch's  work  grew 
more  general.  It  is  significant  of  the  progress 
towards  modern  things  made  by  the  Jews  that 
even  the  very  ignorant  no  longer  admire  Shai- 
kevitch's work  as  much  as  formerly.  He  is  "out 
of  date,"  so  much  so  that  he  now  does  not  sign 

276 


N.  M.  SHAIKEVITCH 


the  stories  he  publishes  in  the  Yiddish  news- 
papers, which,  nevertheless,  are  still  popular 
among  the  most  ignorant. 

The  intellectual  Socialists  of  the  Jewish  quar- 
ter in  New  York  also  had  their  fling  at  the  pop- 
ular writer,  and  helped  to  put  him  into  obscur- 
ity. Now  it  is  a  common  thing  in  the  Ghetto  to 
hear  a  Socialist  say  that  Shaikevitch  wielded  a 
more  disintegrating  and  unfavorable  influence 
on  the  Jews  than  any  other  writer.  But,  never- 
theless, the  calm  old  man,  who  has  a  wife  and 
several  grown  children,  who  are  making  their 
way  in  the  new  world,  still  sits  quietly  at  his 
desk,  drinking  Russian  tea  and  doing  his  daily 

stunt  "  of  several  thousand  words  for  the  Yid- 
dish newspapers. 

The  reason  given  by  Mr.  Shaikevitch  for  com- 
ing to  America  is  that  he  began  to  be  interested 
in  play  writing,  when  the  Yiddish  stage  was 
prohibited  in  Russia.  The  actors  left  Russia 
then  and  came  to  America,  and  some  of  them 
later  wrote  Shaikevitch,  who  was  one  of  the 
earliest  Yiddish  playwrights,  to  join  them  in 
New  York.  He  did  so,  and  has  written  twelve 
plays,  which  have  been  produced  in  this  city. 
Some  of  the  better  known  of  them  are :  The 
Je<wish  County  Hamann  the  Second,  Rebecca  and  Drey- 
fus^   Shaikevitch  is  interesting  mainly  as  rep- 

278 


resenting  in  his  work  an  early  stage  of  the 
popular  Yiddish  consciousness. 

A  CYNICAL  INVENTOR 
The  intellectuals"  who  gather  in  the  Russian 
cafes  delight  in  expressing  the  ideas  for  which 
they  were  persecuted  abroad.  Enthusiasm  for 
progress  and  love  of  ideas  is  the  characteristic 
tone  of  these  gatherings  and  an  entire  lack  of 
practical  sense. 

Very  striking,  therefore,  was  the  attitude  of  a 
Russian-Jewish  inventor,  who  took  his  lunch 
the  other  day  at  one  of  the  most  literary  of  these 
cafes.  Near  him  were  a  trio  of  enthusiasts,  ges- 
ticulating over  their  tea,  but  he  sat  aloof,  alone. 
He  listened  with  a  cold,  superior  smile.  He 
neither  smoked  nor  drank,  but  sat,  with  his  thin, 
shrewd  face,  chillily  thinking. 

It  is  common  report  in  the  community  of  the 
intellectual  Ghetto  that  Mr.  Okun  made  a  great 
invention  connected  with  the  electric  arc  lamp. 
It  resulted  in  lengthening  the  time  before  the 
carbon  is  burnt  out  from  four  or  five  hours  to 
150  hours  or  thereabouts.  He  might  have  been 
a  millionaire  to-day,  both  he  and  his  acquaint- 
ances maintain,  but,  with  the  usual  unpractical 
nature  of  the  Russian  Jew,  he  was  cheated  by 
unscrupulous  lawyers.    He  was  a  shirt  maker, 

279 


and  for  six  years  saved  from  his  $io  a  week  to 
buy  the  apparatus  necessary  for  the  task.  At 
last  it  was  completed,  but  he  was  robbed  of  the 
fortune,  of  the  fame,  of  the  prestige  to  which  his 
great  idea  entitled  him.  As  it  is,  he  gets  only 
$1,250  a  year  for  the  great  deed,  spends  much  of 
his  time  silently  in  the  cafes,  and  dreams  of 
other  inventions  when  not  engaged  with  criticiz- 
ing his  kind. 

An  American,  who  sometimes  visited  the  place 
for  "color"  and  for  the  unpractical  enthusiasm 
which  he  missed  among  his  own  people,  sat 
down  by  the  inventor,  whose  face  interested 
him,  and  entered  into  conversation.  He  spoke 
of  a  Yiddish  playwright  whom  he  admired. 

do  not  know  much  about  him,"  said  the 
inventor.    "  I  am  not  a  genius,  like  the  others." 

He  sneered,  but  it  was  so  nearly  imperceptible 
that  it  did  not  seem  ill-natured. 

But  I  am  told,"  said  the  American,  *'that 
you  are  a  great  inventor.  And  that  is  a  kind  of 
genius." 

"Yes,  perhaps,"  he  replied,  carelessly.  "It 
takes  talent,  too,  to  do  what  I  have  done.  But 
I  am  not  a  genius,  like  these  people." 

Again  he  smiled,  sarcastically. 

"I  find,"  said  the  American,  "a  great  many 
interesting  people  in  these  cafes." 

280 


"Yes,  they  are  what  you  call  characters,  I 
suppose,"  he  said,  dispassionately;  "but  I  find 
them  interesting  only  for  one  reason — no,  no,  I 
won't  tell  you  what  that  reason  is." 

"You  don't  seem  to  be  as  enthusiastic  about 
the  people  as  I  am,"  said  the  American,  "but 
whenever  I  come  into  a  cafe  down  here  I  find 
serious  men  who  will  talk  seriously.  They  are 
different  from  the  Americans  who  amuse  them- 
selves in  bars,  at  horse  races  and  farces." 

The  inventor  smiled  coldly. 

"  I  do  not  call  serious  what  you  call  serious," 
he  said.  "  It  is  not  necessary  to  talk  seriously 
to  be  serious.  Serious  men  do  things.  The  Rus- 
sians don't  do  things.  If  they  were  gay  and  did 
things,  they  would  be  more  serious  than  they  are. 
But  they  are  solemn  and  don't  do  anything." 

"I  don't  agree  with  you,"  said  the  American, 
warmly.  "  Doesn't  Blank,  who  writes  so  many 
excellent  novels,  do  anything?  Don't  the  actors, 
who  act  so  truthfully,  without  self-consciousness, 
do  anything  ?  Don't  the  journalists,  who  spread 
excellent  ideas,  do  anything?" 

The  inventor  nodded  judicially  and  remarked 
that  there  were  some  exceptions. 

"But,"  he  added,  "you  are  deceived  by  the 
surface.  There  are  many  men  in  our  colony 
who  seem  to  be  stronger  intellectually  than  they 

281 


really  are.  In  Russia  a  few  men,  really  culti- 
vated and  intellectual,  give  the  tone,  and  every- 
body follows  them.  In  America,  however,  the 
public  gives  the  tone,  and  the  playwright,  the 
literary  man,  simply  expresses  the  public.  So 
that  really  intellectual  Americans  do  not  express 
as  good  ideas  as  less  intellectual  Russians.  The 
Russians  all  imitate  the  best.  The  Americans 
imitate  what  the  mass  of  the  people  want.  But 
an  intellectual  American  is  more  intellectual 
than  these  geniuses  around  here  whom  you  like. 
Of  course,  they  have  some  good  things  in  them, 
as  everybody  has." 

"What  is  it  that  you  find  to  like  in  this  Rus- 
sian colony?"  asked  the  American. 

"I  find,"  replied  the  inventor,  that  when  they 
come  over  here  they  lose  what  is  best  in  the 
Russian  character  and  acquire  what  is  worst  in 
the  American  character."  \ 

"And  what  do  you  deem  best  in  the  Russian 
character?" 

"Well,  in  Russia  they  are  warm  hearted  and 
friendly.  They  are  envious  even  there,  but  not 
nearly  so  envious  as  they  are  here." 

"And  what  do  you  find  that  is  worst  in  the 
American  character?" 

"  Oh,  you  know ;  they  do  everything  for  money. 
But  yet  there  is  more  greatness  in  the  American 

282 


character.  They  are  mechanical.  They  are 
practical.  They  don't  get  cheated  by  unscrupu- 
lous lawyers. 

"Are  you  married?"  asked  the  American, 
sympathetically. 

"  No,  thank  God ! "  he  replied,  with  more 
energy  than  he  had  yet  shown. 

"  But  you  have  no  friends  ?  " 

"No." 

"Some  men,"  commented  the  American,  "find 
a  friend  in  a  wife." 

"That  depends  on  a  man's  character.  It  in- 
creases the  loneliness  of  some  men,"  replied  the 
inventor,  smiling  in  spite  of  what  he  was  saying. 

"You  seem  to  me  to  be  rather  pessimistic," 
remarked  the  American. 

"No,  I  am  not  pessimistic.  I  understand  that 
a  pessimist  thinks  life  is  worse  than  it  is,  but  I 
see  things  just  as  they  are  ;  that  is  all.  When  I 
came  to  New  York  I  was  enthusiastic,  too ;  I 
was  an  optimist.  I  saw  life  as  it  is  not.  But 
the  mists  have  passed  from  before  my  eyes,  and 
I  see  things  just  as  they  are." 

AN  IMPASSIONED  CRITIC 

He  loves  literature  with  an  absorbing  love, 
and  is  pained  constantly  by  what  he  deems  the 
chaos  of  art  in  the  United  States.    The  Ameri- 

283 


cans  seem  to  him  to  be  trivial  and  immature  in 
their  art,  lacking  in  serious  purpose. 

*'It  is  a  vast  and  fruitful  land,"  he  will  say, 
"but  there  is  no  order  and  little  sincerity  as  far 
as  art  is  concerned.  Your  writers  try  to  amuse 
the  readers,  to  entertain  them  merely,  rather 
than  to  give  them  serious  and  vital  truth.  Why 
is  it  that  a  race  which  is  clever  and  progressive 
in  all  mechanical  and  industrial  matters,  which 
in  such  things  has  no  overpowering  respect  for 
the  past,  is  weighed  down  in  art  by  a  regard 
for  all  the  literary  ghosts  of  bygone  times  ? 
Look  at  the  books  put  forth  in  any  one  year  in 
the  United  States !  What  a  senseless  hodge- 
podge it  is !  Variety  of  all  kinds,  historical 
novels,  short  stories,  social  plays,  costume 
plays,  bindings,  illustrations,  editions  de  luxe,  new 
editions  of  books  written  in  all  ages  alongside  of 
the  latest  productions  of  the  day.  The  Ameri- 
cans have  great  tact  in  most  things.  They  are 
the  cleverest  people  in  the  world,  and  yet  they 
are  very  backward  in  literature. 

"  Indeed  the  whole  Anglo-Saxon  race,  great 
economically  and  practically  as  it  is,  is  curiously 
at  sea  and  chaotic  in  all  that  pertains  to  literary 
art.  There  are  men  of  genius,  great  artists 
among  them,  but  they  are  artists  only  in  part, 
fragmentarily,  artists  without  being  aware  of 

284 


it,  with  no  consistent  and  clear  understanding  of 
what  art  is.  Your  great  men  are  hindered  by 
their  environment.  America  and  England  are 
the  most  difficult  countries  in  the  world  for  real 
art  to  get  a  hearing,  for  all  the  people  insist  on 
being  amused  by  their  authors.  They  treat 
them  as  they  do  their  actors,  merely  as  public 
servants  whose  duty  it  is  to  amuse  the  public 
when  it  is  tired.  But  art  is  a  serious  thing, 
instinct  with  sincerity,  and  should  never  be 
lightly  approached  either  by  the  artist  or  the 
reader. 

'^Another  indication  of  what  I  mean  is  the 
way  you  all  talk  about  style  over  here,  as  if  the 
style  had  anything  to  do  with  art.  Some  of  the 
great  Russian  realists  have  no  style,  but  they 
are  great  artists.  There  was  a  time  when  to 
write  well  was  an  exception,  and  people  who  did 
it  were  supposed  to  be  great.  Now  so  many 
write  well  that  it  constitutes  no  longer  any  par- 
ticular distinction.  Real  art  consists  in  the  pres- 
entation of  ideas  in  images,  and  in  the  power  of 
seeing  in  images,  and  of  reproducing  imagina- 
tively ;  what  is  thus  seen  is  wholly  independent 
of  style.  And,  more,  words  often  stand  in  the 
way  of  art.  A  man  writes  a  pretty  style.  There 
may  be  no  idea  or  image  beneath  it,  but  you 
Anglo-Saxons  say  :  *  Ha  !  Here  is  a  man  with  a 

285 


style,  a  great  artist ! '  But  he  is  no  artist.  He 
is  a  mere  decorator,  trivial  and  empty.  He 
doesn't  seize  earnestly  upon  life  and  tell  the 
truth  about  it.  Now  and  then,  indeed,  I  see 
indications  of  real  art  in  your  writers — great 
images,  great  characters,  great  truth,  but  all 
merely  in  suggestion.  You  don't  know  when 
you  do  anything  good,  and  most  of  you  don't 
like  it  when  you  see  it.  You  prefer  an  exciting 
plot  to  a  great  delineation  of  character.  Some- 
times you  throw  off,  often  in  newspapers,  some- 
thing that  indicates  great  talent,  real  art,  but 
you  cover  it  up  with  an  indistinguishable  mass 
of  rubbish.  You  don't  know  what  you  are  after. 
You  have  no  method.  Every  writer  goes  his 
single  way,  confused,  at  cross  purposes.  There 
is  no  school  of  literature.  Consequently,  there 
is  great  loss  of  energy,  great  waste  of  material; 
great  richness,  but  what  carelessness,  what 
deplorable  carelessness,  about  the  deepest  and 
noblest  and  most  serious  things  in  life !  I  love 
you  ;  I  love  you  all ;  you  are  clever,  good  fellows, 
but  you  are  children,  talented,  to  be  sure,  but 
wayward  and  vagrant  children,  in  the  fields  of 
art.  Sincerity,  realism,  purpose  and  unity  are 
what  as  a  race  you  need,  if  you  wish  ever  to 
have  a  consistent  and  genuine  art. 

The  Russian,  the  Frenchman,  the  German, 

286 


knows  what  he  wants.  He  is  after  the  truth. 
He  is  serious  about  life.  He  doesn't  try  to 
dodge  the  facts  for  the  sake  of  a  little  false 
cheerfulness  and  optimistic  inanity." 

Thus  talks  the  Russian  prophet.  He  is  a 
robust,  earnest  man,  who  is  trying  to  make  head 
and  tail  out  of  contemporary  English  literature. 
He  finds  no  great  mainspring  of  impulse  or  prin- 
ciple behind  it,  but  an  infinite  pandering  to  an 
infinitely  diversified  public  taste.  He  thinks  it  is 
a  kind  of  vaudeville  of  art,  full  of  compromises, 
vulgar  in  its  lack  of  principle.  It  makes  him  sad 
in  much  the  same  way  that  skepticism  and  pro- 
fanity sadden  a  deeply  religious  person.  Wis- 
dom and  truth  he  wants,  and  doesn't  find  them. 
What  he  finds  is  haste,  greed,  incompleteness 
and  waste,  and  his  soul  abhors  anything  which 
takes  away  from  the  deepest  nature  of  the  soul. 
He  is  really  a  religious  man,  profound  and  sin- 
cere, sad  at  the  wasteful,  foolish  lightness  in  art 
of  the  Anglo-Saxon  world.  Like  his  great 
countryman,  Tolstoy,  he  writes  stories,  and, 
again  like  Tolstoy,  as  he  grows  older  the  more 
he  sees  in  art  and  life  which  he  would  like  to 
reform  and  deepen.  Economy  of  the  heart,  soul 
and  brain,  the  direction  of  them  to  a  constant 
end — the  feeling  of  the  necessity  of  this  is  now 
an  altruistic  passion  with  this  man.    Like  all 

287 


reformers,  he  is  sad,  but,  again  like  all  reform- 
ers, he  is  robust  and  calm,  self-sufficient. 

THE  POET  OF  ZIONISM 

Naptali  Herz  Imber  is  known  to  all  Jews  of 
any  education  as  the  man  who  has  written  in 
the  old  Hebrew  language  the  poems  that  best 
express  the  hope  of  Zion  and  that  best  serve  as 
an  inspiring  battle  cry  in  the  struggle  for  a  new 
Jerusalem.  Zangwill  has  translated  into  Eng- 
lish the  Hebrew  "  Wacht  Am  Rhein,"  the  most 
popular  of  Imber's  poems,  which  is  called  The 
Watch  on  the  Jordan*  It  is  in  four  stanzas,  the 
first  of  which  is  : 

Like  the  crash  of  the  thunder 

Which  splitteth  asunder 

The  flame  of  the  cloud, 

On  our  ears  ever  falling, 

A  voice  is  heard  calling 

From  Zion  aloud; 

**Let  your  spirits'  desires 

For  the  land  of  your  sires 

Eternally  burn 

From  the  foe  to  deliver 

Our  own  holy  river, 

To  Jordan  return." 

Where  the  soft  flowing  stream 

Murmurs  low  as  in  dream. 

There  set  we  our  watch. 

Our  watchword,  **The  sword. 

Of  our  land  and  our  Lord," 

By  the  Jordan  then  set  we  our  watch. 

288 


Mr.  Imber  is  a  peculiar  character  and  is  said 
to  be  the  original  of  the  poet  Pinchas  in  Zang- 
will's  Children  of  the  Ghetto. 

At  a  Russian-Jewish  cafe  on  Canal  Street  he 
may  often  be  found.  Not  long  ago  I  met  him 
there  and  discovered  that  the  dignified  Hebrew- 
poet  had  as  a  man  many  of  the  more  humorous 
and  less  impressive  peculiarities  of  the  character 
in  Mr.  Zangwill's  book.  It  is  difficult  to  take 
him  seriously.  He  was  sitting  opposite  an  old 
*'magid,"  or  wandering  preacher,  whose  spec- 
ialty is  to  attack  America,  and  he  consented  to 
tell  about  his  work  and  to  confide  some  of  his 
ideas. 

''I  am  the  origin  of  the  Zionistic  movement," 
he  said.  ''It  is  not  generally  known,  but  I  am. 
Many  years  ago  I  went  to  Jerusalem,  saw  the 
misery  of  the  people,  felt  the  spirit  of  the  place 
and  determined  to  bring  my  scattered  people 
again  together.  For  twelve  years  I  struggled 
to  put  the  Zionistic  movement  on  foot,  and  now 
that  I  have  started  it  I  will  let  others  carry  it  on 
and  get  the  glory.  For  long  I  was  not  recog- 
nized, but  when  my  Hebrew  poems  were  pub- 
lished our  whole  race  were  made  enthusiastic 
for  Zion. 

''If  you  wish  to  know  what  the  spirit  and 
purpose  of  my  Hebrew  poems  is  I  will  tell  you. 

289 


For  two  thousand  years  Hebrew  poetry  has 
been  nothing  but  lamentations— nothing  but 
literature  expressing  the  spirit  of  Jeremiah. 
There  have  been  no  love  songs,  no  wine  songs, 
no  songs  of  joy,  nothing  pagan.  There  have 
been  no  poets,  only  critics  in  rhyme.  Now  what 
I  did  in  my  Hebrew  verses  was  to  do  away  with 
lamentations.  We  have  had  enough  of  lamen- 
tations. I  introduced  the  spirit  of  love  and 
wine,  the  pagan  spirit.  My  theme,  indeed,  is 
Zion.  I  am  an  individualist.  It  is  the  only  Mst' 
I  believe  in,  and  I  want  my  nation  to  be  individ- 
ual, too.  I  want  them  to  be  joyously  them- 
selves, and  so  I  am  a  Zionist.  Therefore  I  did 
away  with  critical  poetry  and  with  lamentations 
and  led  my  people  on  to  an  individual  and  a 
joyous  life." 

Altho  Mr.  Imber's  best  work  is  in  Hebrew 
poetry,  he  is  yet  a  very  voluminous  writer  on 
science,  economics,  medicine,  mysticism,  history 
and  many  other  subjects. 

"  I  have  written  on  everything,"  said  the  poet, 
"everything.  I  know  almost  nothing  about  the 
subjects  on  which  I  write.  I  don't  believe  in 
reading.  I  believe  in  knowing  myself.  In  that 
way  we  learn  to  know  others.  Psychology  is 
the  only  science.  All  others  are  fakes,  and  I 
can  fake  as  well  as  anybody.    Why  read,  or  why 

290 


seek  amusement  in  the  theatres  or  elsewhere, 
when  one  can  sit  in  a  cafe  and  talk  to  a  man  like 
that?" 

He  pointed  in  the  old  '*magid"  opposite  him. 

"Whenever  I  want  to  amuse  myself,"  he  said, 
"  I  talk  to  a  man  like  that,  and  I  cannot  amuse 
myself  without  learning  more  about  psychology." 

With  the  exception  of  his  poems  most  of  the 
poet's  work  was  written  in  the  English  language. 

"I  began  to  write  English  late  in  life,"  he 
said.  "  Israel  Zangwill  helped  me  to  begin.  He 
said  he  would  correct  what  I  wrote,  but  I  wrote 
so  much  that  Mr.  Zangwill  stopped  reading  it 
and  told  me  to  go  ahead  on  my  own  hook.  So  I 
did.  I  have  written  infinitely  in  English,  some 
of  which  has  been  published — Music  of  the  Psalms; 
Education  and  the  Talmud,  which  was  issued  by 
the  United  States  government  in  the  report  of 
the  commissioner  of  education;  many  articles  on 
mysticism  and  other  subjects  in  the  magazine 
Ariel ;  The  Mystery  of  the  Golden  Calf,  the  Music  of  the 
Ghetto,  and  many  other  works  on  the  cabalistic 
mysticism.  I  have  also  written.  Who  Was  Cruci- 
fied? wherein  I  prove  that  it  was  not  Jesus.  If 
I  kept  on  all  day  I  could  not  tell  you  the  names 
of  all  I  have  written.  I  have  published  many 
articles  in  the  Jewish-American  papers  satirizing 
the  rabbis,  who  consequently  hate  me.    Much  of 

291 


my  work,  indeed,  is  satirical.  The  world  needs 
cleaning  up  a  little,  particularly  the  rabbis.  Put 
the  reformed  and  orthodox  rabbis  together  and 
some  good  might  come  of  them.  I  am  not 
afraid  of  these  people,  whom  I  call  silk-chimney 
rabbis,  because  they  wear  tall  hats  instead  of 
knowing  the  Talmud.  It  was  my  own  invention 
— *  silk-chimney  rabbis.'  " 

Mr.  Imber  is  evidently  very  fond  of  this 
phrase,  for  he  repeated  it  many  times.  Indeed, 
he  does  not  seem  to  be  a  very  pious  Jew.  He 
himself  admits  it,  for  he  said  : 

"  I  do  not  think  they  will  say  *  Kaddish '  for 
my  soul  when  I  am  dead.  And  yet  I  am  not  a 
skeptic,  exactly.  I  have  a  principle,  Zionism. 
And  beyond  Zionism  I  have  another  great  in- 
terest. I  have  now  perfected  Zionism,  so  I  am 
free  to  pass  on  to  Mysticism,  in  which  I  am 
deeply  at  work.  The  mystics  are  all  bluffers.  I 
am  a  mystic,  but  my  mysticism  is  simple  and 
plain.  My  aim  is  to  present  a  perfectly  simple 
view  of  occultism.  It  is  difficult  to  persuade 
Americans  to  become  mystics.  They  care  noth- 
ing for  Hegel  and  Kant.  Their  philosophy  I 
call  Barnumism." 

Mr.  Imber  has  largely  given  up  writing 
Hebrew  now,  but  lately  he  wrote  a  Hebrew 
poem  comprising  200  closely  printed  pages.  He 

292 


NAPTALl  HERZ  IMBER 


did  it,  he  said,  to  spite  a  man  who  said  the  poet 
had  forgotten  Hebrew  because  of  his  penchant  for 
English. 

Not  long  ago  Mr.  Imber  wrote  a  Last  Confes- 
sion in  Hebrew.  He  was  very  sick  in  a  St.  Louis 
hospital  with  blood  poisoning,  and  thought  he 
was  going  to  die.  They  wanted  him  to  confess 
his  sins.  So  he  did  it,  in  Hebrew  verse,  which 
he  translated  to  me,  evidently  on  the  spur  of  the 
moment,  thus : 

When  my  day  will  come 

To  wander  in  distress. 
Call  the  priest  to  my  room. 

My  sins  to  confess. 

The  sins  which  I  have  committed 

With  deliberation. 
They  will  by  the  Lord  be  omitted, 

Who  promised  us  salvation. 

The  evils  I  have  done. 

Not  conscious  of  the  action. 

Have  passed  away  and  gone 
Without  satisfaction. 

I  see  near  me  the  green  table  : 

The  gamblers  play  aloud. 
And  I  am  sick  and  unable 

To  mix  up  with  the  crowd. 

There  are  still  beautiful  roses. 

With  aroma  blessed ; 
There  are  still  handsome  maidens. 

Whose  lips  I  have  not  pressed. 

294 


This  has  me  affected, 

I  am  full  of  remorse, 
That  of  late  I  have  neglected 

The  girl  and  the  roses. 

Written  on  what  the  poet  thought  was  his 
deathbed,  this  satirical  poem  is  almost  as  heroic 
as  The  Watch  on  the  Jordan* 

Mr.  Imber  has  also  written  many  original 
poems  in  English,  which,  however,  he  fears  will 
not  live.  Many  of  them  are  satirical  poems 
about  American  life  and  politics.  When  in  Den- 
ver before  the  Spanish  war  he  wrote  some  verses 
beginning : 

Our  flag  will  soon  be  planted 

In  a  land  where  we  do  not  want  it. 

It  was,  the  poet  said,  through  the  simple,  clear 
character  of  his  mystical  attainments  that  he  was 
able  to  predict  the  results  of  the  war  with  Spain. 

Mr.  Imber  looks  upon  America  as  the  ''land  of 
the  bluff"  and  as  such  admires  it.  But  he  dis- 
approves of  our  reform  movements.  He  thinks 
the  recent  attempt  to  reform  the  east  side  was 
due  to  the  desire  of  the  rich  to  divert  attention 
from  their  own  vices.  He  doesn't  approve  of 
reform  any  way. 

'*We  have  been  trying  to  reform  human  na- 
ture," he  said,  ''for  2,000  years,  and  have  not 
done  it  yet.    The  only  way  to  make  a  man  good 

295 


is  to  remove  his  stomach,  for  so  long  as  he  is 
hungry  he  will  steal,  and  so  long  as  he  has 
other  desires  he  will  commit  other  wicked  ac- 
tions. Moses  and  Jesus  were  smart  men  and 
knew  that  evil  could  not  be  rooted  out,  and  so 
they  tolerated  it." 

Mr.  Imber  has  recently  made  his  last  will  and 
testament.  It  is  in  Hebrew  prose  and  runs  thus 
in  English  : 

"To  the  rabbis  I  leave  what  I  don't  know;  it 
will  help  them  to  a  longer  life.  To  my  enemies 
I  leave  my  rheumatism.  Between  the  Repub- 
lican and  Democratic  parties  I  divide  the  boodle 
which  they  have  not  yet  touched.  To  the  Jew- 
ish editors  I  leave  my  broken  pen,  so  that  they 
can  write  slowly  and  avoid  mistakes.  My  books 
—those  intended  for  beginners — I  leave  to  the 
eight  professors,  so  that  they  can  learn  to  read. 
As  an  executor  there  shall  be  appointed  a  man 
who  knows  Barnum's  philosophy  through  and 
through.  Written  on  my  deathbedo  Witness, 
Mr.  Pluto  of  the  Underground  and  his  Famulus, 
the  doctor.  As  an  afterthought  I  leave  to  my 
publishers  the  last  bill  unpaid  by  me.  They  can 
frame  it  and  keep  it  as  an  amulet  to  ward  away 
that  class  of  authors." 

"  Is  it  sarcastic  ?"  asked  Mr.  Imber,  chuckling 
delightedly. 

296 


Some  time  ago  Mr.  Imber  sent  the  news  of 
his  own  death  to  the  various  Hebrew  and  Yid- 
dish publications.  Many  long  obituaries — "very- 
fine  ones,"  said  the  poet — appeared. 

"In  that  way,"  said  Mr.  Imber,  "I  learned 
who  were  my  enemies.  It  had  one  evil  conse- 
quence, however.  When  I  afterward  asked  the 
editor  to  publish  one  of  my  articles  he  said : 

"'You  are  officially  dead,  and  as  such  cannot 
rush  into  print. 

"That  reply  really  gave  me  a  grievous  mo- 
ment," said  the  poet,  with  a  shrewd,  Voltairian 
smile. 

AN  INTELLECTUAL  DEBAUCHEE 

Four  men  sat  excitedly  talking  in  the  little 
cafe  on  Grand  Street  where  the  Socialists  and 
Anarchists  of  the  Russian  quarter  were  wont 
to  meet  late  at  night  and  stay  until  the  small 
hours.  An  American,  who  might  by  chance 
have  happened  there,  would  have  wondered 
what  important  event  had  occurred  to  rasp  these 
men's  voices,  to  cause  them  to  gesticulate  so 
wildly,  to  give  their  dark,  intelligent  faces  so 
fateful,  so  ominous  an  expression.  In  reality, 
however,  nothing  out  of  the  ordinary  had  hap- 
pened. It  was  the  usual  course  of  human  affairs 
which  kept  these  men  in  a  constant  glow  of 

297 


unhappy  emotion  ;  an  emotion  which  they  deeply 
preferred  to  trivial  optimism  and  the  content 
founded  on  Philistine  well-being.  They  were 
always  excited  about  life,  for  life  as  it  is  consti- 
tuted seemed  to  them  very  unjust. 

It  was  nearly  midnight,  and  the  men  in  the 
cafe,  altho  they  had  drunk  nothing  stronger  than 
Russian  tea,  talked  on,  seemingly  intoxicated 
with  ideas.  One  was  the  editor  of  a  Yiddish 
newspaper  in  the  quarter  and  a  contributor  to 
the  Anarchistic  monthly.  He  was  a  man  of 
about  forty  years  of  age,  lighter  in  complexion 
than  his  companions,  but  yet  dark.  Like  them 
he  was  dressed  carelessly  and  poorly.  In  his 
melancholy  eyes  shone  a  gentle  idealism.  He 
spoke  in  a  voice  lower  and  softer  than  those  of 
his  fellows.  He  was  deeply  liked  by  them,  for 
he  was  capable  of  sweet  and  beautiful  ideas 
about  the  perfect  humanity,  some  of  which  he 
had  put  into  a  play  which  had  a  short  life  on  the 
Bowery,  but  lived  in  the  hearts  of  these  warm 
intellectuals.  Non-resistance  to  evil  was  the 
favorite  principle  of  this  gentle  Anarchist, 
whose  name  was  Blanofsky. 

His  companions  were  younger  and  more 
heated  and  violent  in  speech,  tho  their  atten- 
uated bodies  and  thoughtful  and  sensitive  faces 
did  not  suggest  reliance  on  physical  force.  On 

298 


the  Bowery  the  Irish  tough  fights  after  a  word, 
but  an  all  day  dispute  between  two  Jews  on 
Canal  or  Hester  Street  is  unaccompanied  by  the 
clenching  of  a  fist.  A  dark,  thin  young  man, 
whose  closely  shaven  face  seemed  somehow  to 
fit  his  spirit,  given  over  entirely  to  the  move- 
ment," sat  at  Blanofsky's  right  hand.  At  almost 
any  hour  of  the  day  or  night  Hermann  Samaro- 
vitch  could  be  found  at  the  Anarchist  headquart- 
ers on  Essex  Street,  poring  over  the  books  of 
the  propaganda  and  engaging  in  talk  with  other 
bright  spirits  of  the  ''movement."  Now,  as  he 
talked  or  listened  in  the  cafe  on  Grand  Street, 
his  pale,  smooth  face  seemed  dead  to  all  the 
ordinary  interests  of  youth.  The  spirit  of  life 
was  represented  in  him  only  by  the  passion  for 
the  cause,  which  burned  in  his  black  eyes.  He 
had  no  other  function  than  to  worship  at  the 
shrine.    How  he  lived,  therefore,  was  a  mystery. 

Of  the  other  two  men,  one,  Jacob  Hessler,  a 
labor  leader  in  the  Ghetto,  an  eloquent  speaker ; 
of  more  commanding  presence,  but  less  sensitive 
and  impressive  at  short  range  than  either  Bla- 
nofsky  or  Samarovitch,  was  silent,  for  the  most 
part.  He  talked  only  to  crowds,  partly  because 
it  was  exciting,  but  mainly  because  his  limited 
intelligence  put  him  at  a  disadvantage  in  inti- 
mate talk  with  men  of  concentrated  intellectual 

299 


character.  The  fourth  man  in  the  cafe,  Abraham 
Gudinsky,  was  a  simple  admirer  of  Blanofsky. 
He  was  born  in  Jerusalem,  had  studied  law  in 
Constantinople,  had  lived  in  Paris  as  a  bohemian, 
and,  after  a  few  years  passed  in  the  common- 
place, dissipated  gayety  of  youth,  had  come  to 
New  York,  where  his  sympathetic  and  idealistic 
character  had  come  under  the  influence  of  the 
quiet  charm  of  Blanofsky.  He  had  small,  live, 
eyes  and  a  high  forehead,  and  his  body  perpetu- 
ally moved  nervously. 

I  do  not  believe,"  said  Blanofsky,  in  Rus- 
sian, **that  anything  can  be  accomplished  by 
force.  Our  cause  is  too  sacred  to  tarnish  it  with 
blood,  and  it  is  too  strong  in  logic  and  justice 
not  to  conquer  peaceably  in  the  end  ;  and  that, 
too,  without  leaving  behind  it  the  ill-breeding 
weeds  of  a  violent  course.  I  have  nothing  but 
pity  for  the  misguided  wretch  who  took  the  life 
of  King  Humbert,  thinking  he  was  acting  for  the 
cause.  It  is  the  acts  of  such  madmen  as  he  that 
make  us  appear  to  the  public  as  merely  irrational 
monsters." 

Nevertheless,"  said  Samarovitch,  his  dark 
eyes  glowing,  *'It  is  natural  that  the  crimes  of 
society  against  the  individual  should  irritate  us 
sometimes  into  violent  acts.  I  am  not  sure  but 
that  it  is  good  that  it  should  be  so.  Those 

300 


devoted  men,  in  the  great  movement  in  Russia, 
at  the  time  the  Czar  was  killed,  were  as  clear- 
headed as  they  were  devoted  ;  and  they  felt  that 
the  governmental  evil  pressing  in  Russia  could 
be  relieved  only  by  a  kind  of  terrorism.  And 
they  were  right,"  he  concluded,  with  gloomy 
emphasis. 

Blanofsky  shook  his  head,  and  was  about  to 
speak  of  Tolstoy,  whom  he  regarded  as  the  great 
interpreter  of  genuine  anarchy,  when  he  was 
interrupted  by  the  approach  of  a  young  man  and 
a  young  woman  who  had  just  entered  the  cafe. 
Sabina,  as  she  was  familiarly  known  to  the  faith- 
ful, dark  and  slender,  with  very  large,  emotional 
eyes  and  a  mobile  mouth,  had  just  come  from 
her  lecture  to  a  crowd  of  workingmen,  to  whom 
she  had  spoken  eloquently  of  their  right  to  lead  a 
life  with  greater  light  and  beauty  in  it.  The 
emotions  expressed  by  her  eloquence,  and  stirred 
by  it,  still  lay  in  her  deep  eyes  as  she  entered 
the  cafe.  Her  companion,  who  had  walked  with 
her  from  the  lecture,  was  a  young  poet,  whose 
words  followed  one  another  with  turbulent  en- 
ergy. His  head  was  set  uncommonly  close  to 
his  compact,  stout  shoulders,  seeming  to  have  a 
firmer  rest  than  usual  on  the  trunk,  and  thus 
better  to  support  the  strain  of  his  thick-coming 
fancies.    His  habitual  attitude  was  to  hold  his 

301 


closed  fist  even  with  his  shoulder,  and  punctuate 
with  it  the  transitions  of  his  thought.  Even  in 
winter  the  perspiration  rolled  down  his  face  as 
he  spoke,  for  thought  with  him  was  intense  to 
the  point  of  pain.  He  was  the  perfect  type  of 
the  intellectual  debauchee  of  the  Russian-Jewish 
colony.  He  drank  nothing  but  tea  and  coffee, 
but  within  him  burned  his  ideas.  He  made  his 
living  by  writing  an  occasional  poem  or  article 
for  a  Yiddish  paper,  and  when  he  had  gathered 
together  a  few  dollars  he  repaired  again  to  the 
cafes,  seeking  companions  to  whom  he  could 
confide  his  exuberant  thoughts,  which  were 
always  expressed  in  poetic  images.  He  slept 
whenever  and  wherever  he  was  tired,  but  he  slept 
seldom,  and  unwillingly.  Unrest  was  his  quest 
and  unhappiness  his  dearest  consolation.  The 
type  of  his  mind  was  as  Russian  as  his  name, 
which  was  Levitzky.  The  girl  looked  and  lis- 
tened to  him,  fascinated.  They  sat  down  at  the 
table  with  the  others,  and  while  the  waiter  was 
bringing  their  tea  and  lemon,  Levitzky  continued 
his  discourse  : 

*^No,  I  do  not  like  America.  The  people  here 
are  satisfied.  Things  seem  frozen  here — finished. 
Great  deeds  have  been  done,  great  things  have 
been  created.  Wall  Street  and  Broadway  fill 
me  with  wonder.    The  outside  is  great,  showing 

302 


energy  that  has  been.  But  at  the  core,  all  is 
dead.  The  imagination  and  the  heart  are  ex- 
tinguished. Content  and  comfort  eat  up  the 
nation.  New  York  seems  to  me  an  active  city  of 
the  dead,  where  there  is  much  movement,  but  no 
soul.  Russia,  which  I  love,  is  just  the  opposite. 
There  nothing  is  done,  nothing  finished.  One 
sees  nothing,  but  feels  warmth  and  vitality  at 
the  heart.  In  love  it  is  the  same  way.  The 
American  wants  a  legal  wife  and  a  comfortable 
home,  but  the  Russian  wants  a  mistress  behind 
a  mountain  to  whom  he  can  not  penetrate  but 
towards  whom  he  can  strive,  for  whom  he  can 
long  and  dream.  It  is  better  to  hope  than  to 
attain." 

Sabina  looked  at  him,  her  bosom  heaving. 
His  last  words  seemed  to  trouble  her,  but  she 
sat  in  silence  and  appeared  to  listen  to  the  con- 
versation, which  turned  on  a  recent  strike  in  the 
Ghetto.  Finally  she  got  up  to  go  home,  refusing 
Levitzky's  offer  to  accompany  her.  Leaving  the 
Anarchists  still  engaged  in  talk,  she  went  into 
the  street,  which,  altho  it  was  after  one  o'clock, 
was  still  far  from  deserted. 

Instead  of  going  to  her  poor  room  in  the 
tenement-house  on  Hester  Street  she  walked 
slowly  along  Grand  Street,  towards  the  Bowery, 
deep  in  reflection.    She  was  thinking  of  Levitzky 

304 


and  of  her  life.  Ten  years  before,  as  a  child  of 
twelve,  she  had  come  to  New  York  from  Rus- 
sia, with  her  father,  a  tailor,  who  had  worked 
for  several  years  in  the  sweat-shops.  He  had 
died  two  years  before,  and  since  then  Sabina 
had  worked  in  the  sweat-shops  in  the  day  time 
and  in  the  evening  had  devoted  herself  to 
the  cause.  At  first  she  had  gone  to  the  Social- 
istic and  Anarchistic  meetings  merely  because 
they  were  attended  by  the  only  society  in  the 
east  side  which  at  all  satisfied  her  growing 
intellectual  activity.  These  rough  workingmen 
sometimes  seemed  to  her  inspired,  and  her  ardor 
and  youth  were  soon  deeply  interested  in  the 
cause  of  Socialism,  partly  because  of  the  pity 
inspired  by  the  sordid  poverty  about  her,  but 
mainly  because  of  the  strong  attraction  any 
earnest  movement  has  for  a  young  and  emotion- 
ally intellectual  person.  As  was  quite  inevitable, 
she  went  from  an  unreserved  love  for  the  group 
of  ideas  called  Socialistic  to  the  quite  contrary 
ones  of  Anarchy.  And  this  change  was  not 
founded  on  intellectual  conviction,  but  was  due 
to  the  simple  fact  that  the  Anarchistic  cause  was 
more  extreme  and  gave  greater  apparent  oppor- 
tunity for  self-sacrifice  ;  and  for  the  reason,  too, 
that  the  most  interesting  man  she  had  met, 
Levitzky,  was  at  that  time  an  Anarchist.  These 

305 


two  made,  very  often,  passionate  speeches  on 
the  same  evening  to  a  crowd  of  attentive 
laborers,  and  after  the  meeting  walked  the  street 
together  or  sat  over  their  tea  in  the  cafe  discus- 
sing high  ideals,  not  only  Anarchy,  but  all  noble 
subjects  that  detach  the  soul  from  the  sordid 
business  of  life. 

Of  course,  Sabina  loved  Levitzky.  His  robust 
intellect  and  exuberant,  poetical  nature,  a  nature 
constant  to  passion,  but  inconstant  to  persons, 
made  her  beloved  ideas  seem  real,  gave  a  con- 
crete seal  to  the  creations  of  her  imagination. 

Neither  Levitzky  nor  Sabina  were  conscious 
of  the  strong  feeling  that  he  was  arousing  in  the 
girl's  soul.  He  poured  his  mind  out  to  her. 
His  rich  nature  unfolded  in  her  sympathetic 
presence.  She  loved  him  for  the  mental  crises 
he  had  passed ;  and  he  loved  merely  the  mental 
images  his  words  aroused  in  him  when  she  was 
present. 

It  was  not  until  the  evening  of  the  scene  in  the 
cafe  that  she  had  fully  understood  that  she  was 
eternally  in  love  with  Levitzky.  On  the  walk 
from  the  lecture  to  the  Grand  Street  cafe  they 
had  for  the  first  time  spoken  of  love  between 
man  and  woman,  and  Levitzky  had  launched 
forth  into  an  eloquent  tirade  against  satisfied 
desire,  a  speech  which  was  concluded  in  th§ 

306 


cafe,  with  the  remark  about  how  a  Russian  loves 
an  inaccessible  mistress,  a  beautiful  creature 
separated  from  her  lover  by  a  mountain,  while 
the  despised  American  wants  a  legal  wife  whom 
he  can  enjoy  and  be  sure  of. 

The  sentiment  fitted  in  beautifully  with 
Sabina's  habitually  enthusiastic  habit  of  mind. 
But  to-night  she  was  ashamed  of  herself  because 
his  words  filled  her  with  fear  and  pain.  Irrational 
emotion  drove  her  theories  from  her  head,  and 
struck  her  dumb  with  grief  for  what  she  looked 
upon  as  a  betrayed  ideal.  She,  who  had  devoted 
herself  to  the  "  movement "  ;  she,  who  had  chosen 
an  intellectual  career,  a  life  devoted  to  the  cause 
of  humanity ;  she,  who  had  been  proud  of  her 
independence  and  had  confidently  looked  forward 
to  a  life  of  celibacy ;  this  superior  person  was  in 
love,  and  loved  as  passionately  and  as  personally 
as  any  commonplace  woman.  She  devoutly  be- 
lieved in  the  worth  of  Levitzky's  ideas  against 
human  love  between  the  sexes,  and  the  fact  that 
her  nerves  and  imagination  went  against  her 
head  overwhelmed  her  with  remorse.  She  was 
unfaithful  not  only  to  her  own  ideals,  but  to  the 
ideals  of  the  man  she  loved.  She  knew  that 
Levitzky  felt  no  love  for  her.  If  he  had,  she 
would  not  have  loved  him.  She  longed  to  tear 
this  feeling,  which  she  felt  to  be  unworthy  of  her 

307 


and  in  the  nature  of  an  insult  to  him,  from  her 
heart ;  but  she  knew  she  could  not. 

After  leaving  Levitzky  and  the  Anarchists  in 
the  cafe,  Sabina  walked  slowly  towards  the 
Bowery,  suffering  with  love  and  humiliation, 
thinking  of  Levitzky  and  of  the  past,  the  devoted 
past  which  now  seemed  deeply  wronged.  Her 
despair  can  perhaps  be  understood  by  the  fanati- 
cal nun  whose  years  of  devotion  to  her  vows  are 
rendered  vain  by  a  sudden  impulse  of  the  heart 
which  is  yielded  to  ;  or  by  the  ambitious  man  of 
affairs  who  betrays  a  governmental  trust  because 
of  the  repeated  frenzy  of  an  emotion  which  wears 
out  his  resistance  and  leads  him  to  the  woman 
who  has  charmed  and  deceived  him. 

As  Sabina  passed  through  the  street  her  at- 
tention was  mechanically  caught  by  the  notice 
in  a  shop  window,  which  was  still  dimly  lighted, 
of  an  important  labor  meeting,  to  take  place  in  a 
couple  of  days,  at  which  a  famous  German  Anar- 
chist was  to  speak — a  man  who  was  coming  from 
Europe  to  join  the  Movement "  in  New  York, 
whose  books  she  had  read  and  loved.  Such 
notices  always  arrested  her  eager  attention,  and 
even  now  habit  led  her  to  stop  by  the  window  and 
dully  read  the  entire  poster.  The  thought  of 
the  coming  event,  which  would  once  have  been 
of  palpitating  interest  to  her,  increased  her  re- 


morse  and  despair.  Of  such  great  activity  as 
this  she  had  rendered  herself  incapable.  To  go 
to  any  such  meeting  now  would  be  hypocrisy, 
she  felt.  The  cause  she  wanted  to  love  and 
serve  and  still  did  love  she  could  yet  never  again 
be  wholehearted  about.  She  bore  with  her  a 
burden.  She  seemed  to  herself  to  be  a  sinful 
creature,  and  the  devoted  life  she  had  led  seemed 
poisoned  by  this  terrible  passion  which  controlled 
her.  She  felt  she  never  again  could  look  Le- 
vitzky  in  the  face  ;  for  a  terrible  impulse  in  her 
was  about  to  drag  her  from  the  pedestal  where 
he  had  helped  to  place  her ;  and  to  drag  with  her 
the  man  she  loved  from  the  impersonal  height  at 
which  he  stood. 

Her  passionate  nature  rebelled  at  the  thought 
of  any  compromise  with  the  ideal.  She  could 
not  endure  life  otherwise  than  as  her  imagination 
dictated — and  here  was  a  passion  which  threat- 
ened the  existence  of  all  she  approved.  What  in 
a  colder  nature  would  have  been  a  mere  intel- 
lectual phase  was  with  her  an  unbearably  emo- 
tional upheaval ;  and  on  the  spot  she  made  a 
resolution  conceived  in  despair  but  carried  out 
with  logical  coolness.  As  the  rebellious  thought 
surged  over  her  and  filled  her  being  with  hot 
emotion  she  became  aware  that  the  shop  was 
that    of  an   apothecary   on    East  Broadway, 

309 


whither  she  had  unconsciously  wandered.  With 
set  lips  she  entered,  aroused  the  sleeping  clerk,  a 
Socialist  whom  she  knew,  and  bought  that  which 
soon  allayed  her  problem  without  solving  it. 
Early  the  next  morning  the  clerk  found  her  lying 
near  the  doorway,  with  an  expression  of  impul- 
sive energy  on  her  dark  face. 

About  three  days  later  Blanofsky  and  his  three 
friends  were  sitting  in  the  cafe  on  Grand  Street, 
drinking  their  eternal  Russian  tea  and  talking 
about  Levitzky. 

I  never  saw  a  man  so  broken,"  said  Blanofsky 
in  his  soft  voice,  *'as  Levitzky  was  by  the  death 
of  that  girl.  For  a  week  I  feared  for  his  life,  he 
was  so  desperate.  It  seems  he  met  Lefeitkin's 
clerk,  who  told  him.  He  disappeared  from  the 
quarter  for  several  days,  and  no  one  knew  where 
he  went.  Four  days  ago  he  came  to  my  room 
looking  like  a  madman.  His  hair  was  full  of 
mud  and  his  clothes  torn  and  filthy.  His  eyes 
burned  in  his  pale  face,  and  his  speech,  more 
voluminous  than  ever,  was  broken  and  inco- 
herent. He  stayed  all  day,  refused  to  eat,  but 
talked  all  the  time  of  Sabina,  of  her  mind,  of  her 
rare  personality,  of  her  devotion  to  the  cause. 
He  was  interrupted  by  fits  of  sobbing.  I  did  not 
know  that  this  man  of  intellect  was  capable  of 
so  great  personal  feeling." 

310 


"Levitzky  is  weak,"  said  Herman  Samaro- 
vitch,  **and  inconstant.  He  has  vivid  ideas,  and 
imagination,  but  he  never  really  cared  for  the 
cause.  He  was  a  Socialist  before  he  was  an 
Anarchist.  Before  that  he  was  an  atheist,  which 
followed  a  period  of  religious  mysticism.  At  one 
time  he  was  a  conventional  capitalist  in  prin- 
ciple, with  the  English  government  as  his  model. 
He  is  easily  moved  by  an  idea  or  an  emotion,  but 
he  easily  passes  to  another.  He  will  soon  forget 
this  girl's  death,  to  which  he  should  have  been 
superior.  He  has  no  steadfastness,  and  is  not 
one  of  us." 

At  this  point,  Levitzky  entered  the  cafe.  With 
him  was  the  new  arrival,  the  German  Anarchist. 
To  him  Levitzky  was  talking  with  great  anima- 
tion. His  words  rolled  over  one  another  with 
enthusiasm. 

Do  you  know,"  he  said  eagerly,  his  face 
beaming,  to  Blanofsky  and  his  companions,  "that 
our  distinguished  friend  here  has  consented  to 
debate  to-morrow  night  with  our  Socialist  friend, 
Jacob  Matz,  that  mistaken  but  able  man,  on  the 
nature  of  individual  right  as  interpreted  by  the 
Anarchist  on  one  side  and  the  Socialist  on  the 
other.  I  have  written  a  poem  on  liberty  which  I 
intend  to  read  at  the  meeting.  Do  you  wish  to 
hear  it?" 

311 


He  drew  a  manuscript  from  his  pocket  and 
read  enthusiastically  a  poem  in  which  a  turbulent 
love  for  man  and  nature,  for  social  equality  and 
foaming  cataracts  was  expressed  in  rich  imagery. 
His  face  glowed  and  he  seemed  transported. 
He  had  forgotten  Sabina. 


Charles  Dana  Gibson  says:    "It  is  like  a 
trip  to  Paris." 

THE  REAL  LATIN 
(QUARTER  OF  PARIS 

By  F.  Berkeley  Smith 

Racy  sketches  of  the  innermost  life  and  characters 
of  the  fanaous  Bohemia  of  Paris  —  its  grisettes,  stu- 
dents, models,  balls,  studios,  cafes,  etc. 

John  W.  Alexander:   "  It  is  the  real  thing." 

Frederick  Remington:  "You  have  left  nothing  un- 
done." 

Ernest  Thompson  Seton:  "A  true  picture  of  the  Latin 
Quarter  as  1  knew  it." 

Frederick  Dielman,  President  National  Academy  of 
Design  :  "  Makes  the  Latin  Quarter  very  real  and  still 
invests  it  with  interest  and  charm." 

Evening  Telegraph,  Philadelphia:  "A  captivating 
book." 

Boston  Times:   "A  genuine  treat." 

The  Argonaut,  San  Francisco:  "A  charming  vok  me. 
Mr.  Smith  does  not  fail  to  get  at  the  intimate  secrets, 
I     the  subtle  charm  of  the  real  Latin  Quarter  made 
famous  by  Henry  Merger  and  Du  Maurier." 

The  Mail  and  Express,  New  York:  "  When  you  have 
read  this  book  you  know  the  '  Real  Latin  Quarter '  as 
well  as  you  will  ever  come  to  know  it  without  living 
there  yourself." 

Boston  Herald:  "  It  pictures  the  Latin  Quarter  in  its 
true  light." 

[Vater-Colof  Frontispiece  by  F.  Hopkinson  Smith.  About  100 
original  drawings  and  camera  snap  shots  by  the  Author,  and 
two  caricatures  in  color  by  the  celebrated  French  caricaturist 
Sancha,  Ornamental  Covers.  12mo,  Cloth,  Price,  $1.20,  net. 
Postage,  13  Cents. 

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LOVE  AND  THE 
SOUL  HUNTERS 

By  John  Oliver  Hobbes 

Author  of  '■^  The  Godsy  Some  Morals^  and  Lord  fVickenham,^'' 
^'The  Herb  Afoo/z,"  *'  Schools  for  Saints,'' 
Robert  Grange, etc.,  etc. 

tN  this  new  novel  Mrs.  Craigie  (John  Oliver 
Hobbes)  has  made,  according  to  her  own 
statement,  the  great  effort  of  her  life.  It  is  the 
most  brilliant  creation  of  an  author  whose  talent  and 
versatility  have  surprised  readers  and  critics  in  both 
Europe  and  America  for  several  years.  It  treats  of 
unique  examples  of  human  nature  as  they  are,  and 
not  merely  as  they  ought  to  be.  Swayed  by  com- 
plex motives,  they  are  always  attractive,  but  often 
do  what  is  least  expected  of  them.  The  story  is 
graphically  told,  and  is  full  of  action.  Each  per- 
sonage is  distinctively  drawn  to  the  life. 

*'  There  is  much  that  is  worth  remembering  in  her  writings. " 
— Mail  and  Express,  New  York. 

"  More  than  any  other  woman  who  is  now  writing,  Mrs. 
Craigie  is,  in  the  true  manly  sense,  a  woman  of  letters.  She 
is  not  a  woman  with  a  few  personal  emotions  to  express  :  she 
is  what  a  woman  so  rarely  is — an  artist." — The  Star,  London. 

"  Few  English  writers  have  so  lapidarian  a  style  of  writing  as 
Mrs.  Craigie,  and  few  such  a  capacity  for  writing  epigrams." — 
The  Toronto  Globe. 


I2mOy  Cloth.  $I>50 


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A  ROMANCE  OF  A  STRANGE  COUNTRT 


THE 
INSANE  ROOT 

By  Mrs.  Campbell  Praed 

Author  ofNadine  ;  The  Scourge  Stick'';  ''As  a  Watch 
in  the  Nighty''  etc. 

THIS  story  has  the  same  motif  as  Stevenson's  Dr.  Jekyl 
and  Mr.  Hyde,  and  a  weird  treatment  resembling  that 
of  Bulwer's  "  Strange  Story."  It  will  compare  favor- 
ably in  strength  and  literary  quality  with  either  of  these  great 
productions.  Isadas  Pacha,  Ambassador  at  the  Court  of  St. 
James's  from  AbduUulah  Zobeir,  Emperor  of  Abaria,  dying  at 
last  after  a  long  life  of  mixed  good  and  evil,  leaves  to  his  phy- 
sician. Dr.  Marillier,  "  the  insane  root,"  a  mandregora  root, 
enclosed  in  a  small  box.  Marillier,  a  suitor  of  Rachel,  the 
beautiful  ward  of  the  Pacha,  envies  Ruel  Bey,  his  favored 
rival.  Learning  from  the  papers  left  by  the  Pacha  that  the 
mandrake  root  has  marvelous  powers,  Marillier  succeeds  in 
assuming  the  body  of  Ruel  who  has  been  accidentally  killed. 
On  this  change  of  identities  the  fascinating  story  turns.  After 
marrying  Rachel  the  problem  of  consummating  the  marriage 
can  not  be  solved  by  Marillier,  the  wraith  of  the  real  Ruel 
preventing.  A  bolt  of  lightning  solves  the  problem.  There 
is  a  mystery  about  Rachel,  who  turns  out  to  be  the  Emperor's 
own  daughter.  The  scenery  is  partly  that  of  the  Algerian 
mountains,  very  graphically  and  beautifully  described.  The 
supernatural  elements  are  handled  in  a  way  to  make  them  seem 
actually  credible.  The  storm  climax  reminds  the  reader  of 
Hawthorne's  best  work  in  the  Marble  Fawn. 


1 2 mo.  Cloth.    j8o  Pages.  $l.^O 

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THE 
NEEDLE'S  EYE 

By  Florence  Morse  Kingsley 

Author  of  '•^The   Transfiguration  of  M.is%  PhilurUy''  Titus,''' 
Prisoners  of  the  Sea,''  '■^  Stephen,"  etc. 

THE  NEEDLE'S  EYE"  is  a  remarkable  story  of  modern 
American  life, — not  of  one  phase,  but  of  many  phases, 
widely  different  and  in  startling  contrast.  The  scenes 
alternate  between  country  and  city.  The  pure,  free  air  of  the 
hills,  and  the  foul,  stifling  atmosphere  of  the  slums  ;  the  sweet 
breath  of  the  clover  fields,  and  the  stench  of  crowded  rv^ne- 
ments  are  equally  familiar  to  the  hero  in  this  novel.  The  other 
characters  are  found  in  vine-covered  cottages,  in  humble  farm- 
houses, in  city  palaces,  and  in  the  poorest  tenements  of  the 
slums.  Immanuel,  the  hero,  begins  life  as  a  foundling,  and  the 
chapters  telling  of  his  unhappy  infancy  and  happy  boyhood  are 
written  with  a  tenderness,  a  pathos,  and  an  intimacy  of  knowl- 
edge and  description  that  touch  the  deepest  sympathies  of  the 
reader.  Later,  Immanuel  finds  himself  the  heir  of  a  vast  for- 
tune. His  struggle  to  use  the  wealth  in  relieving  the  miseries 
of  the  slums  demonstrates  the  truth  of  the  declaration  of  Jesus  : 
"  It  is  easier  for  a  camel  to  go  through  a  needle's  eye  tnan  for 
a  rich  man  to  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  God." 

Many  of  the  situations  in  the  novel  are  exceedingly  dramatic. 
Others  sparkle  with  genuine  humor.  This  is  a  story  to  make 
people  laugh,  and  cry,  and  think. 

Illustrations  by  F.  E.  Mears.    i2mo^  Cloth.  $1.^0 


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St.  Louis  Globe-Democrat :  **It  is  a  simple,  gen- 
tle, quietly-humorous  narrative,  with  several  love 
affairs  in  it." 

UNDER  MY 

OWN  ROOF 

By    Adelaide    L.  Rouse 

Author  of      The  Deane   Girls,^^    "  Westo'ver  House etc. 

A STORY  of  a      nesting  impulse"  and  what  came  of  it. 
A  newspaper  woman  determines  to  build  a  home  for 
herself  in  a  Jersey  suburb.     The  story  of  its  planning  is 
delightfully  told,  simply  and  with  a  lite'-ary-humorous  flavor 
that  will  appeal  to  lovers  of  books  and  of  the  fireside. 

Before  the  house-building  details  are  allowed  to  tire  the 
reader,  a  love  story  is  begun,  and  catches  the  interest.  It 
concerns  the  home-builder,  an  old  flame,  and  an  old  friend,  the 
third  of  whom  has  become  a  next-door  neighbor.  With  this 
romance  are  entwined  a  number  of  heart  affairs  as  well  as  warm 
friendships. 

The  style  is  bright,  and  the  humor  genial  and  pervasive. 
The  "literary  worker"  and  the  "suburbanite"  particularly 
will  enjoy  the  book.  Women  of  culture  everywhere  should 
appreciate  its  delicate  style. 


Illustrations  by  Harrie  A.  Stoner.     izmo.  Cloth. 
Price,  ^i.20,  net;  postage,  13  cents. 


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JESUS  THE  JEW 

JND  OTHER  JBBRESSES 
By  Harris  Weinstock 

Introduction  by  Prof.  David  Starr  Jordan 

Ten  straightforward  talks  by  a  broad-minded  stu- 
dent of  the  Jewish  Race,  explaining  alike  to  jew  and 
Christian  the  fundamental  and  highest  conceptions 
of  liberal  Judaism  and  its  relationship  in  Christianity. 

HIGH  PRAISE  FROM  THE  NON-JEPVISH  PRESS 
Herald  and  Presbyter^  St.  Louis,  Mo.:  "The  author  is  a 
man  of  force  and  of  large  liberality,  and  goes  far  beyond  what 
the  ordinary  orthodox  Jew  would  be  willing  to  concede." 

The  Outlooky  New  York  :  "It  will  justify  a  wide  attention 
from  both  Jews  and  Christians,  and  in  many  respects  will  be  of 
peculiar  helpfulness  to  some  who  have  no  conscious  religious 
faith. " 

Neivi-hetter  ^  San  Francisco  :  "A  very  interesting  volume, 
well  written,  broad  in  its  tendencies,  and  one  that  will  be  help- 
ful to  any  one  who  reads  it,  regardless  of  race  or  creed." 

COMMENDED  BY  LEADING  JEWISH  PAPERS 
The  Je%vii,h  Spectator^  New  Orleans  :  "Its  tendency  is  to 
remove  prejudices  from  the  minds  of  non-Jews  and  to  strengthen 
the  faith  of  the  Jew.  Every  Israelite  in  the  land  should  obtain 
two  copies,  read  one  for  his  own  benefit  and  comfort,  and  give 
the  other  to  a  Christian  friend  who  entertains  yet  a  few  prej- 
udices and  is  desirous  of  divesting  himself  of  them." 

Jewish  Ledger^  New  Orleans,  La.:  "It  deserves  a  con- 
spicuous place  in  the  homes  of  intelligent  people.  .  .  .  Always 
couched  in  respectful  and  courteous  language,  and  refreshing  in 
logical  consideration  of  the  question." 


I2mo,  Cloth,  22g  pp.     $l.OO,  net;  by  Mail,  $l.OJ 


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4 


